4 December 1872: The brigantine Dei Gratia chances upon another brigantine out on the Atlantic near the Azores. She is the Mary Celeste. She is under sail. But she is deserted. Silent as a drowned cadaver. For 150 years since then, the mystery of why the Mary Celeste was abandoned, and what happened to the ten souls on board, has spawned thousands of conjectures, conspiracy theories, fictions and fantasies. Some have thought they solved the mystery. Some have just spun yarns. One, at least, has claimed it was all a hoax. The Mysterious Case of the Mary Celeste: 150 Years of Myth and Mystique unveils those stories - the 'fake news', 'alternative facts' and the myths fabricated from fractured truths. These are the real facts in search of a truth that remains unfathomable to this day.

In the nineteenth century true stories of cannibal tribes massacring white traders (and vice versa) and missionaries fed the morbid appetites of Europeans, North Americans and colonials. Accounts of cannibalism committed by seafarers on their dead shipmates quickened the pulses of landfolk even more, and pricked their moral disquiet. Acts of desperate men committing unspeakable atrocities. The warring frenzy of cannibal headhunters and their gruesome feasting. Such was the stuff of real-life 'sixpenny romances', rich in human butchery and garnished with treachery and terror. The more atrocious the at rocities, the more exotic the locations; the more sensational the narratives, the greater was the thrall of these thrilling tales of the sea.

Life at sea in the nineteenth century was demanding and perilous. Seamen had to be able to rely on those around them. This was easier said than done. The sea could be, and still is, a place of constant and unpredictable danger, whether by storm, shipboard disease or threat from the crew. Stories of unimaginable cruelties inflicted upon crews by savage officers and treacheries committed by mutinous crews were the soap operas of the day. People followed the trials in the newspapers, hanging hungrily on to each new piece of detail. Tales of suffering, hardship and treachery were thrilling to those on land but also replete with piteous infamy.

The sea realm has ever been mysterious: strange happenings upon it, an unfathomable abyss of 'The Great Unknown' below. Before the scrutiny of scientific Enlightenment and Age of Reason, in the eighteenth century, ghost ships and oceanic monsters were the stuff of superstition, myth and legend to explain the inexplicable, to enthral the imagination - and enliven the unimaginable. Narratives of phantom ships manned by ghostly (sometimes skeletal) crews, or damned like the Flying Dutchman to roam the seas forever; of sinister, sinuous sea serpents; and the lore of the terrible multi-tentacled kraken. Accounts inspired spirited controversy amongst believers and sceptics, in the awestruck thrill of such frightful enigmas.

The mythology of Mesoamerica, which encompasses the general region of Central America, is a vast mixture of mythologies from many cultures. Yet even with so many cultures in the mix, each of the mythologies covers the same basic themes, including those about creation and the afterlife. Accompanying the text are brilliant, full-color images to capture the imagination. Supports English language arts content standards requiring students to identify and analyze the characteristics of various literary forms and genres, such as myths.