"It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that Dolin’s saga has as many twists and turns as a route through the mazy South Atlantic archipelago....Dolin does justice to the drama of it all... without stinting on one of pleasures of reading 19th-century history: the wordsmithery of people high and low…The author of several previous books on such maritime topics as piracy and whaling, Dolin is an expert literary steersman."

- Dennis Drabelle - The Washington Post,

"It’s a tale with all the elements of a movie blockbuster: shipwreck, mutiny, greed and a desperate struggle for survival in a hostile environment. There is also high-minded altruism, persistent backstabbing, drunkenness and—as if a movie executive had insisted it could only help the box office—a noble dog....Dolin’s firm grasp of the 19th-century maritime world is undeniable....This is a masterly account of a historical event."

- Bill Heavey - The Wall Street Journal,

"Eric Jay Dolin’s depiction of early 1800s seafaring is filled with as much adventure, intrigue, action, and colorful characters as any classic Hollywood movie. Surviving a thousand-mile ocean journey in a small boat is just one of several scintillating ingredients. Left for Dead is a true account that reads like a grizzled sailor’s tall tale."

- Tom Clavin, author of Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival,