Message in a bottle: eyewitness account of the loss of SS President (1841)

A maritime mystery in print: the Dutch edition of a sensational (and possibly fabricated) eyewitness account of the loss of the President, the largest passenger ship of her day.

Launched in 1840, the SS President was the pride of transatlantic travel—the largest passenger vessel afloat. In March 1841, she sailed from New York to Liverpool with 136 passengers and crew. Somewhere between Nantucket Shoals and Georges Bank, she met a fierce gale and vanished. All aboard were lost. The disaster gripped Europe and America alike: even Queen Victoria reportedly followed the news closely.

In 1842, Hamburg publisher Berendsohn issued a German edition of what claimed to be an eyewitness account, allegedly written by Methodist clergyman George Grimston Cookman (1800–1841), one of the doomed passengers. According to the story, Cookman’s manuscript had been found in a bottle near Newfoundland.

The account, though almost certainly a fabrication designed to exploit public fascination, is a fascinating artifact of how 19th-century publishers turned tragedy into sensation. The present volume is the rare Dutch translation of that German edition—a remarkable witness to the interplay of disaster, rumor, and print culture.

For collectors of maritime history, shipwreck narratives, or 19th-century popular literature, this Dutch edition is both a curiosity and a conversation piece.