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,...

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

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...

An unparalleled account of merchant men at sea in the early 19th century
This is a well known book with a familiar title. Its contents are probably less known to many. It is the account of one young man's experiences serving on board a sailing brig-the Penelope-bound for California, between the years1834-36.What makes it exceptional is not that it is the literary effort of a common seamen of the time-though they are rare enough-but that it is quite the opposite. Dana came from a well-established middle class American family whose patriarchs had practised law since early colonial days....