Dimensions
134 x 197 x 19mm
The Extraordinary True Story of the New Jersey Great White Shark Attacks of 1916.
As holidaymakers thronged the palatial hotels and sandy beaches along the Jersey Shore in the summer of 1916, America was bursting with optimism and self-confidence. But a hitherto unimaginable series of events was about to shake that self-confidence to its core and create a national frenzy.
A lone Great White Shark, driven inshore by freak climatic conditions, began to develop a taste for human flesh, attacking swimmers all along the popular coast between New York and Philadelphia - and even, incredibly, swimming eleven miles inland to devastate a farming community. When the horrifying truth could no longer be denied, an entire nation mobilised its collective energy to hunt down the monster, and a mythic enemy was permanently lodged in our nightmares.
The tragedy introduced the twentieth century to the terror of sharks and seemed to mark the end of an innocent age when ships were unsinkable and a shark, so experts believed, hadn't the jaw strength to hurt a man. They remain the most devastating series of shark attacks in history, anywhere in the world - the model for Peter Benchley's bestseller 'Jaws'.
