Water and fire. Two elements – one of which will extinguish the other – except when the fire is aboard a wooden ship and the water is all around her. Then you are faced with little hope for escape and must decide whether to drown or burn to death.

This is the tragedy nearly 400 men, women, and children, seventy of whom are under the age of fourteen, face the day they set sail from Liverpool, England that fateful day in August 1848. Within a few hours, their ship sinks off the coast of Llandudno, Wales.

Ocean Monarch is bound for Boston and built by Donald McKay just the year before. She has three decks and is considered far safer than the coffin ships that carry many immigrants. Life boats aren’t required, although a couple are carried. What firefighting equipment she has consists of a dozen buckets and a water pump that isn’t up to snuff. By the time the fire is discovered, there is little anyone can do and nowhere for most people to go until other ships arrive to help.

Those who board Ocean Monarch come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are Irish emigrants seeking a new homeland. Others are tourists returning from their travels. A handful possess money and stature. The majority work for a living or are penniless. Nearly half of them will not survive. A number of the passengers are introduced by name and followed as events unfold, such as the Dows, who are newly married; Nathaniel Southworth, a well-known miniaturist; James Fellows, a watchmaker and jeweler; and Thomas Henry, who expressly waits to sail on this ship because he knows her captain. There is also a man who abandons his wife to run off with another man’s wife. Others are mentioned for something they do, such as a stewardess, whose name is unknown, who sacrifices her life to prevent gunpowder from exploding which will have made the tragedy even worse.

This is more than just the story of those aboard the burning ship. It is also about her rescuers, including members of the Brazilian navy, exiled French royalty, and a man who has rescued people from another shipwreck. One of the captains has even served under Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson. Then there are the pilots and a rumor of a possible murder.

In twelve chapters, Hoffs explores events and people before, during, and after the fire. She includes some black-&-white photographs, an epilogue, and personal note, as well as appendices that provide a chronology of the corpses and details about them, locations of grave sites and inquests, and a list of medals. In addition, there is a list of names of passengers, stewards, stewardesses, the captain and crew, and some who are aboard other vessels and come to the doomed ship’s aid. A select bibliography and index complete the text. Interspersed throughout the narrative are firsthand accounts and newspaper reports of what happened that day and in the days that follow.

What becomes clear in reading this story is that this travesty need not have been as horrific as it ends up being and that despite the passing of more than a century and a half, there still is no concrete proof as to how the fire starts. In explaining how she comes to write this story, Hoffs also demonstrates the role social behavior plays in the events. She deftly shows the chaos and confusion that results from the fire, and her words paint a gruesome image of what the victims endure. (She does include a warning note of what pages to skip for readers who may be squeamish.) Rather than focus on just the microcosm of the ship, she elaborates on what is happening in the world at the time. She also leaves readers with many questions that are never clearly answered by the inquests or investigators. By the end of the book, she does share that her research enables her to identify six nameless victims and what happens to known survivors.

Perhaps not as gripping a tale as Hoffs’s earlier book, The Lost Story of the William & Mary, nor as clear-cut as to why Ocean Monarch is a “lost” tale, The Lost Story of the Ocean Monarch is still an important contribution to collections focusing on shipwrecks and emigrant stories.

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Review Copyright ©2019 Cindy Vallar