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,...

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863 edition. Excerpt: ...frame of the intended schooner was a thing easy enough, with expert American axemen, and with that glorious implement of civilization, the American axe. But it was not quite so e, asy to get the timber down to the cove. The keel; in particular, gave a good deal of trouble. Heaton had brought along with him both cart and wagon wheels, and without that it is questionable if the...

Marianne Philbrick's poems embody her intense responses both to the complexity and beauty of the natural world and to the demands and rewards of the household and workplace. Underlying those responses is her perception of all experience as spiritual experience.