SHIPWRECK SUFFERED
IN THE YEAR 1805
BY THE SHIP
OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
CALLED
THE EARL OF ABERGAVENNY
Edited by Riccardo Pasqualin
On February 5, 1805, the East India Company ship Earl of Abergavenny sank off Weymouth, taking with it over two hundred lives, among them John Wordsworth, brother of the poet William. This tragic loss deeply marked the Romantic imagination.
Vittorio Barzoni, an Italian writer and polemicist exiled for his opposition to Napoleon, transformed the disaster into a tale that blends history and invention. First published in 1833, Shipwreck suffered in the year 1805 by the ship of the East India Company called The Earl of Abergavenny is both a dramatic narrative of love and despair and a meditation on human frailty before fate and nature.
This edition, edited and introduced by Riccardo Pasqualin, presents the first full English translation. It situates Barzoni between Counter-Revolutionary thought and Romantic culture, showing his connections with Coleridge and Wordsworth. The shipwreck becomes more than a maritime tragedy: it is a symbol of destiny, grief, and resilience.
A forgotten voice of nineteenth-century Italy, Barzoni speaks again to readers and scholars, restoring a missing link between Italian Romanticism and European literature.
