No other animal is as inexorably linked with extinction as the dodo, an odd-looking flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean until the late 17th century.

Instead, the life of a 17th-century sailor appears closer to Dantean punishment: lavish in its unnatural suffering and baroque trauma. It’s a wonder anyone ventured past their front door.

No other animal is as inexorably linked with extinction as the dodo, an odd-looking flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean until the late 17th century. Now, a ...