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Richard Henry Dana, Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast & Other Voyages

Two Years Before the Mast | To Cuba and Back | Journal of a Voyage Round the World, 1859–1860

Edited by Thomas Philbrick

“Though a narrative of literal, prosaic truth, Two Years Before the Mast possesses something of the romantic charm of Robinson Crusoe. Few more interesting chapters of the literature of the sea have ever fallen under our notice. . . . This simple narrative, stamped with deep sincerity, and often displaying an unstudied, pathetic eloquence, may lead to reflections, which mere argument and sentimental appeals do not call forth. It will serve to hasten the day of reckoning between society and the sailor, which, though late, will not fail to come.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Overview

News Why Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast still appeals to sailors—and young readers
November 11, 2019

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This volume collects three sea-going travel narratives by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., that span 25 years of maritime history, from the age of sail to the age of steam.

Suffering from persistent weakness in his eyes, Dana left Harvard at age 19 and sailed from Boston in 1834 as a common seaman. Two Years Before the Mast (1840) is the classic account of his voyages around Cape Horn and time ashore in California in the decade before the Gold Rush. Written with an unprecedented realism that challenged the romanticism of previous maritime literature, Dana’s narrative vividly portrays the daily routines and hardships of life at sea, the capriciousness and brutality of merchant ship captains and officers, and the beauty and danger of the southern oceans in winter. Included in an appendix is “Twenty-Four Years After” (1869), in which Dana describes his return to California in 1859–1860 and the immense changes brought about by American annexation, the frenzy of the Gold Rush, and the growing commerce of “a new world, the awakened Pacific.”

Dana first visited Cuba in the winter of 1859 while the possible annexation of the island was being debated in the U.S. Senate. To Cuba and Back (1859) is his entertaining and enthusiastic account of his trip, during which he toured Havana and a sugar plantation; attended a bullfight; visited churches, hospitals, schools, and prisons; and investigated the impact on Cuban society of slavery and autocratic Spanish rule.

Journal of a Voyage Round the World, 1859–1860 records the 14-month circumnavigation that took Dana to California, Hawaii, China, Japan, Malaya, Ceylon, India, Egypt, and Europe. Written with unflagging energy and curiosity, the journal provides fascinating vignettes of frontier life in California, missionary influence in Hawaii, the impact of the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War on China, and the opening of Japan to the West, while capturing the transition from the age of sail to the faster, smaller world created by the steamship and the telegraph.

Thomas L. Philbrick, volume editor, is professor emeritus of English at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Richard Henry Dana Jr: Two Years Before the Mast & Other Voyages is kept in print by a gift from the J. Aron Charitable Foundation to the Guardians of American Letters Fund, made in honor of Jack Aron.

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ISBN: 978-1-931082-83-9 992 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 161 Library of America Series

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