In this nineteenth-century nautical memoir, a Harvard man sails around the tip of South America to California—and returns with this classic tale of adventure. In 1834, nineteen-year-old Richard Henry Dana left Harvard University to enlist as a deckhand on a brig sailing from Boston to the California coast. For the next two years, he recorded the terrifying storms, awe-inspiring beauty, and dreadful hardships of the journey in a diary he would later expand into this riveting memoir of “the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is.” Dana spares no detail in portraying the wretched conditions he endured and the cruelty of the ship’s captain, but he also paints vivid, unforgettable pictures of natural wonders such as icebergs and schools of migrating whales. His descriptions of the missions and presidios of pre–Gold Rush California captured the imagination of the country when the book was first published in 1840, and they serve as valuable historical documentation to this day. An instant classic and inspiration for contemporaries such as Herman Melville, Two Years Before the Mast is one of the most remarkable and influential adventure stories in American literature. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
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.
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 Years Before 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.
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Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
A true story of the battered life of a foremast crewman, Two Years Before the Mast is Richard Henry Dana’s classic travel narrative, which inspired canonical works such as Moby Dick and Sailing Alone Around the World. As Rod Scher follows Dana (the Harvard dropout-turned-sailor) on his voyages around North America, he annotates Dana’s tale with critiques, tie-ins to today, and little-known facts about both the book and the milieu of Dana’s time.
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.
Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf. Volume XXIII features the classic memoir of life on the high seas, Two Years Before the Mast, by American lawyer and activist RICHARD HENRY DANA JR. (1815-1882). No adventure tale, this is an expose of how poorly enlisted sailors were treated, which Dana learned firsthand on a two-year 1830s voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. First published in 1846, this volume also includes an appendix to the 1869 edition, "Twenty-Four Years After," in which Dana returns to California. Indeed, this work is important not only for its treatment of naval life but for its rare depiction of early California, both before and after the Gold Rush.
How I got along, I cannot now remember. I ``laid out'' on the yards and held on with all my strength. I could not have been of much service, for I remember having been sick several times before I left the topsail yard, making wild vomits into the black night, to leeward. Soon all was snug aloft, and we were again allowed to go below. This I did not consider much of a favor, for the confusion of everything below, and that inexpressible sickening smell, caused by the shaking up of bilge water in the hold, made the steerage but an indifferent refuge from the cold, wet decks. I had often read of the nautical experiences of others, but I felt as though there could be none worse than mine; for, in addition to every other evil, I could not but remember that this was only the first night of a two years' voyage. When we were on deck, we were not much better off, for we were continually ordered about by the officer, who said that it was good for us to be in motion. Yet anything was better than the horrible state of things below. I remember very well going to the hatchway and putting my head down, when I was oppressed by nausea, and always being relieved immediately. It was an effectual emetic.
General Richard Henry Pratt, best known as the founder and longtime superintendent of the influential Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, profoundly shaped Indian education and federal Indian policy at the turn of the twentieth century. His experiences led him to dedicate himself to Indian education, and from 1879 to 1904 he directed the Carlisle school, believing that the only way to save Indians from extinction was to remove Indian youth to nonreservation settings and there inculcate in them what he considered civilized ways.
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.
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