In 1834, Richard Henry Dana Jr. left the comforts of Boston for the hardships and abuses of the most exploited segment of the American working class. Dana’s account of his passage around Cape Horn to California, and back, is a remarkable portrait of the seagoing life: the day-to-day routines and conversations, the sailors who manned the ship, the brutality of incompetent officers, and the style of life in the newly emerging coastal towns of California. As Thomas Philbrick discusses in his introduction, the public’s sympathy for the plight of mariners, which was aroused by the book, eventually faded, but Two Years Before the Mast forever changed readers’ romanticized perceptions of life at sea and inaugurated a lasting tradition of realism and concern for human values.

Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea (Penguin Classics)

Biographies & Memoirs

Dana. Jr., Richard Henry

Historical

Penguin Publishing Group

Tracing an awe-inspiring oceanic route from Boston, around Cape Horn, to the California coast, Two Years Before the Mast is both a riveting story of adventure and the most eloquent, insightful account we have of life at sea in the early nineteenth century. Richard Henry Dana is only nineteen when he abandons the patrician world of Boston and Harvard for an arduous voyage among real sailors, amid genuine danger. The result is an astonishing read, replete with vivid descriptions of storms, whales, and the ship's mad captain, terrible hardship and magical beauty, and fascinating historical detail, including an intriguing portrait of California before the gold rush. As D. H. Lawrence proclaimed, "Dana's small book is a very great book."

Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea (Modern Library Classics)

KINDER, Gary

Random House Publishing Group

Two Years before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea

Signet Classics

Two Years Before The Mast is a wonderful, elegantly written adventure classic that is still enjoyable more than one hundred years after its original publication. This is Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s account of his life as a common seaman aboard the brig the Pilgrim which set out from Boston on August 14,1835 destined for California by way of the treacherous Cape Horn. Dana gives an engrossing, detailed account of the workings of the ship, the day-to-day routines of the deck hands, and the brutal shortcomings of inept, tyrannical officers. This “author’s addition” includes a chapter written by Dana twenty-four years after his initial voyage where he revisits some of the people, places and vessels that he had encountered on his original journey.

A personal narrative of life aboard an American merchant ship in the 1830s

Two Years before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea (Signet Classics)

Travel

Travel Writing

Two Years Before the Mast (Signet Classics)

History

World

Signet

In 1834, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., left the comforts of genteel Boston to endure the hardships and abuses of the most exploited segment of the American working class.

Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea

Literature & Fiction

Dutton Adult

Two Years Before the Mast

Dutton

A rare glimpse into the day-to-day shipboard procedures of the 19th-century. The author of Two Years Before the Mast outlines practical aspects of seamanship such as setting sails and tying knots as well as the roles and duties of each crew member. Includes a glossary of sea terms.

The Seaman's Friend: A Treatise on Practical Seamanship (Dover Maritime)

Dover Publications

n 1834, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., was just nineteen years old when he abandoned his life as a Harvard student to enlist as a seaman. Here is the awe-inspiring account of his travels from Boston, around Cape Horn, and to the California coast — an astonishing personal narrative brimming with unforgettable views of an arduous voyage. Vivid descriptions of fierce storms, close encounters with whales, bone-wrenching labor, and the ship's cruel captain mingle with discoveries of magical beauty and fascinating historical detail, including a rare portrait of California before the gold rush. Originally written to expose "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is," Dana's Two YearsBefore the Mast quickly became an American classic of maritime adventure. Crackling with realism, it remains one of the most eloquent and insightful depictions of life at sea in the early nineteenth century.

Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative (Dover Maritime)

Americas

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