Product Description

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."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #406365 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-09
• Released on: 2001-10-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Review
"Possesses . . . the romantic charm of Robinson Crusoe."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson -- Review

Review
"Possesses . . . the romantic charm of Robinson Crusoe."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

From the Inside Flap
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."

Customer Reviews

Why should you read this book?
Why should you read this book? Yes, it is a classic. Yes, it documents the wonderful, adventurous time of the clipper ship. But that's not why you should read it.

Richard Henry Dana must have been a most extraordinary man. While attending Harvard as a young man, his eyesight became weak and his health declined. He decided that the austere prescription of salt air and plain hard work would be the cure. Not many would give up comfort and privelege, but for two years, Dana served as a common sailor, given no special treatment as the gentleman he was, and lived in the forecastle of the Alert, eating the mess of salt beef and common hardtack, risking his life and serving under a captain crueler than most.

Dana was able to write in such a way as to re-create the life on board a sailing ship, down to the smallest details and that's what makes this book so real and touching. You can feel the cold of Tierra del Fuego, taste the salt beef, and feel the wind and damp. What's more amazing is that Dana's carefully-kept journal was lost along with his other mementos of his voyage when he landed back on shore in Boston, due to some tragic carelessness of someone he entrusted with his chest of belongings. Yet he was able to recreate his voyage in loving detail and in some very excellent writing.

Dana's later life as a lawyer was far from happy, though he made some critical contributions to maritime law. He died a poor and disappointed man, but left us the richer with his book. I just re-read it again for the tenth time, and it is fresher than ever. Read it along side of Moby Dick. It's American literature and American history and culture at its very best.

A Voice from Another Time and Place
This book is a great in many ways - as history, as narrative, as travelogue, as social documentary and as Adventure, but I feel that it's probably fair to caution the modern reader that it's written in a style that he or she may not be used to - not flowery, but not spare either. You do get the sense that you're not reading a modern work.

Aside from its other merits, it's great background reading for fans of the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, even though it takes place about 20 years after their last published exploits.

Faults? Well, for my taste, there was perhaps a little more sailor jargon than I could take in (the version of the book I read, not this edition, had no diagrams). When he was going into great detail on sails and ropes, I skimmed past some material, but not too much, and was able to pick up the sense of what he was writing about, without necessarily being able to determine the precise difference between two types of sails on the same mast (call me Maturin). Overall, you get the sense that he spent two years in almost unceasing toil, and that life as a sailor in those days was not one that anyone today would envy.

Also, since this was a recount of an actual two year voyage, there was perhaps one or two too many recounts of cruises up and down the coast for those seeking "adventure" reading, but this is an actual historical account, and can't be faulted for some slow pacing - I have no doubt it WAS awfully tedious at times (which the book is not).

However, it has SO many other merits that any patient reader will gain much from it, particularly an authentic, well documented perspective from another time.

So, read the book, but don't think you'll knock it off in one night, or that it'll read like Tom Clancy, or even Mark Twain. Nevertheless, read it anyway, it's well worth it.

CALIFORNIA HISTORY HAS NEVER BEEN SO FUN !
Just finished reading this book today and thought that it was really good. Myself, being from the San Francisco Bay Area, I was thrilled to hear Dana describe areas that I am well familiar with. The book was a history lesson for me of early California. My book, the Penguin Classic edition, had an extra chapter at the end written by Dana called "Twenty-four Years After". In this chapter he returns to California 24 yrs later and writes about all the changes that have occurred since he was last there, a lot due to the fact of the gold rush. He also goes into some detail on the whereabouts of his former crewmates and the two ships that he sailed on while on his adventure. I have to say that this book probably would have more appeal to someone who is familiar with California as I am. I'm not sure if the book centered on Oregon lets say, that I would have enjoyed it as much as I did. I picked this book up at a second-hand store and am glad I decided to give it a try. I would suggest the same for anyone else that may have an interest in how it was to work and live on ships in the 1800's and early California before statehood.