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

This special edition of TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST includes updates 24 and 76 years after the initial voyage. Richard Dana writes so that the reader can feel the icy Chilean waters, taste the hardtack, and feel whip upon your flogged back. Take the voyage with him as he leaves Harvard to travel with a mad captain around South America to the coasts of California. Feel the same passions that influenced Herman Melville in writing his book Moby Dick and made D.H. Lawrence declare, “Dana's small book is a very great book.”

Two Years Before the Mast, written by Richard Henry Dana, provides a vivid account of "the life of a common sailor at sea". Dana sails from Boston, around Cape Horn, stopping in several ports along the California coast, including San Diego, San Pedro, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco. On the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter, Dana describes terrifying storms and incredible beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs and the scurvy that afflicts members of the crew.

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."

The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o’clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years’ voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed likely to cure.The change from the tight dress coat, silk cap and kid gloves of an undergraduate at Cambridge, to the loose duck trowsers, checked shirt and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was soon made, and I supposed that I should pass very well for a jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in these matters; and while I supposed myself to be looking as salt as Neptune himself, I was, no doubt, known for a landsman by every one on board as soon as I hove in sight. A sailor has a peculiar cut to his clothes, and a way of wearing them which a green hand can never get. The trowsers, tight round the hips, and thence hanging long and loose round the feet, a superabundance of checked shirt, a low-crowned, well varnished black hat, worn on the back of the head, with half a fathom of black ribbon hanging over the left eye, and a peculiar tie to the black silk neckerchief, with sundry other minutiæ, are signs, the want of which betray the beginner, at once. Besides the points in my dress which were out of the way, doubtless my complexion and hands were enough to distinguish me from the regular salt, who, with a sunburnt cheek, wide step, and rolling gait, swings his bronzed and toughened hands athwartships, half open, as though just ready to grasp a rope.“With all my imperfections on my head,” I joined the crew, and we hauled out into the stream, and came to anchor for the night.- Taken from "Two Years Before The Mast" written by Richard Henry Dana

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.

"Two Years Before the Mast" is the true story of Richard Henry Dana's voyage aboard the "Pilgrim" on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Intended as an account of "the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is", "Two Years Before the Mast" details a voyage from Boston to San Francisco to trade goods from the east for cow hides. "Two Years Before the Mast" is a classic depiction of maritime life in the 19th century. Included in this edition is the appendix, "Twenty-Four Years After" written and added by the author in 1869.