So how long DO books survive underwater?

[siyamau]

Going down my usual rabbit hole of internet research, I was thinking about Stede's books being thrown overboard, googled 'how long can books survive in seawater?' and the only information I came upon was about printed text found surviving in Blackbeard's ship. So obviously I'm sharing it here, because it's too much of a coincidence not to.

Book fragments found in the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge.

(Also the whole 'who can read / why would there be books aboard a pirate ship / what books would they be' thing and the fact of where they were found is giving me all kinds of often hilarious and very OFMD mental images!)

Comments

[violateraindrop]

This is super interesting! Thanks for sharing :)
I honestly never thought about this. I figured that the books thrown overboard would be unsalvageable quickly and the only thing left is paper mush.

[saraqael]

Fascinating! Someone aboard Blackbeard's ship at some point had a copy of Cooke's book, "A voyage to the South Sea, and round the world, perform'd in the years 1708, 1709, 1710, and 1711." And it' about sailing under the captaincy of Woodes Rogers, the man who would become famous for stamping out piracy in the Caribbean. I am so intrigued!

[goodbyebird]

That's really neat! Books were made of sturdier stuff back in the day ;) Though of course they were contained within the ship, not free-floating around all my their lonesome, tossed and pulled by the currents.

[goodbyebird]

And it' about sailing under the captaincy of Woodes Rogers, the man who would become famous for stamping out piracy in the Caribbean.

Ok wow that's really cool!

[saraqael]

Woodes Rogers is a fascinating fellow. He was a privateer who sailed around the world, had crews mutiny on him, became Governor of the Bahamas, went bankrupt, came back, handed out pardons to all the pirates, then hired Hornigold (Ed's first captain!) to hunt down the remaining pirates (including Blackbeard) who refused to give up piracy. I'll be shocked if Rogers doesn't show up in S2 or S3 of OFMD, either under his own name or a fake name of some sort. He's the guy who almost single-handedly brought an end to the golden age of piracy.

[siyamau]

<3 I'm pretty sure that they would be unsalvageable tbh but I can dream! (I am disproportionately upset about the books lol)

[siyamau]

It's so cool right?! I could not believe that the thing that came up when I searched it was related to Blackbeard!

[siyamau]

HAHA yeah - can't see many paperbacks surviving! And yeah, from what I've read I think the 'packing' aspect was likely what saved them, as apparently paper only tends to survive at huge depths where there's less movement and colder temperatures.

Also I cannot now rid myself of the mental image of Jack and Ed loading the cannons with books to shoot out.

[siyamau]

I need to read up on all this again (and stop only researching 17th century stuff and branch out into 18th lol) that's super interesting.

[tarlanx]

Thanks for the link... that was fascinating :)

[siyamau]

You're very welcome, really glad you enjoyed!