Paradise in chains: the Bounty mutiny and the founding of Australia

The mutiny on the Bounty in April 1789 and the survival of William Bligh and his men on the open ocean for 48 days and 3618 miles have become the stuff of legend.

But few realize that Bligh's was not the only open boat journey in that era of British colonization of the Pacific.

At almost the same time, nine convicts, including a women, Mary Bryant, fled the new penal colony in Australia to sail 3250 miles across partly uncharted seas to the same port as Bligh.

Within weeks, survivors of a third dramatic open boat voyage - members of the British naval expedition sent to hunt down the Bounty mutineers and some of the captured mutineers themselves - followed.

Diana Preston sets the intertwined stories of the Bounty and the founding of the first British penal colony in Australia against the backdrop of the Age of Enlightenment.