Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781365864476 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Enhanced Media Publishing |
| Publication date: | 04/02/2017 |
| Sold by: | StreetLib SRL |
| Format: | eBook |
| Sales rank: | 771,098 |
| File size: | 527 KB |
About the Author
John Seelye is a graduate research professor of American literature at the University of Florida. He is the author of The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain at the Movies, Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Literature, Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Early Republic, Memory's Nation: The Place of Plymouth Rock, and War Games: Richard Harding Davis and the New Imperialism. He is also the consulting editor for Penguin Classics in American literature.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter I
I am unwilling to present this narrative to the public without a few words in explanation of my reasons for publishing it. Since Mr. Cooper’s Pilot and Red Rover, there have been so many stories of sea-life written, that I should really think it unjustifiable in me to add one to the number without being able to give reasons in some measure warranting me in so doing.
With the single exception, as I am quite confident, of Mr. Ames entertaining, but hasty and desultory work, called “Mariner’s Sketches,” all the books professing to give life at sea have been written by persons who have gained their experience as naval officers, or passengers, and of these, there are very few which are intended to be taken as narratives of facts.
Now, in the first place, the whole course of life, and daily duties, the discipline, habits and customs of a man-of-war are very different from those of the merchant service; and in the next place, however entertaining and well written these books may be, and however accurately they may give sea-life as it appears to their authors, it must still be plain to every one that a naval officer, who goes to sea as a gentleman, “with his gloves on,” (as the phrase is,) and who associates only with his fellow-officers, and hardly speaks to a sailor except through a boatswain’s mate, must take a very different view of the whole matter from that which would be taken by a common sailor.
Besides the interest which every one must feel in exhibitions of life in those forms in which he himself has never experienced it; there has been, of late years, a great deal of attention directed towardcommon seamen, and a strong sympathy awakened in their behalf. Yet I believe that, with the single exception which I have mentioned, there has not been a book written, professing to give their life and experiences, by one who has been of them, and can know what their life really is. A voice from the forecastle has hardly yet been heard.
In the following pages I design to give an accurate and authentic narrative of a little more than two years spent as a common sailor, before the mast, in the American merchant service. It is written out from a journal which I kept at the time, and from notes which I made of most of the events as they happened; and in it I have adhered closely to fact in every particular, and endeavored to give each thing its true character. In so doing, I have been obliged occasionally to use strong and coarse expressions, and in some instances to give scenes which may be painful to nice feelings; but I have very carefully avoided doing so, whenever I have not felt them essential to giving the true character of a scene. My design is, and it is this which has induced me to publish the book, to present the life of a common sailor at sea as it really is,—the light and the dark together.
There may be in some parts a good deal that is unintelligible to the general reader; but I have found from my own experience, and from what I have heard from others, that plain matters of fact in relation to customs and habits of life new to us, and descriptions of life under new aspects, act upon the inexperienced through the imagination, so that we are hardly aware of our want of technical knowledge. Thousands read the escape of the American frigate through the British Channel, and the chase and wreck of the Bristol trader in the Red Rover, and follow the minute nautical manœuvres with breathless interest, who do not know the name of a rope in the ship; and perhaps with none the less admiration and enthusiasm for their want of acquaintance with the professional detail.
In preparing this narrative I have carefully avoided incorporating into it any impressions but those made upon me by the events as they occurred, leaving to my concluding chapter, to which I shall respectfully call the reader’s attention, those views which have been suggested to me by subsequent reflection.
These reasons, and the advice of a few friends, have led me to give this narrative to the press. If it shall interest the general reader, and call more attention to the welfare of seamen, or give any information as to their real condition, which may serve to raise them in the rank of beings, and to promote in any measure their religious and moral improvement, and diminish the hardships of their daily life, the end of its publication will be answered.
Table of Contents
| Chapter I. | ||
| Departure | ||
| First Impressions | ||
| Ship's Duties | ||
| Chapter II. | ||
| First Impressions | ||
| Ship's Duties | ||
| Chapter III. | ||
| Ship's Duties | ||
| Chapter IV. | ||
| Sundays At Sea | ||
| Trouble on Board | ||
| Land Ho | ||
| A Pampero | ||
| Cape Horn | ||
| Chapter V. | ||
| Cape Horn | ||
| A Visit | ||
| Chapter VI. | ||
| Loss Of a Man | ||
| Chapter VII. | ||
| Superstitions | ||
| Juan Fernandez | ||
| Putting the Vessel In Order | ||
| Chapter VIII. | ||
| Painting | ||
| Daily Life | ||
| Point Conception | ||
| Chapter IX. | ||
| Santa Barbara | ||
| Beach-Combing | ||
| A Southeaster | ||
| Chapter X. | ||
| A Southeaster | ||
| Passage Up the Coast | ||
| Chapter XI. | ||
| Passage Up the Coast | ||
| Monterey | ||
| Chapter XII. | ||
| Monterey | ||
| Chapter XIII. | ||
| Monterey | ||
| A British Sailor | ||
| Santa Barbara | ||
| Chapter XIV. | ||
| Hide Droghing | ||
| Discontent | ||
| San Pedro | ||
| Flogging | ||
| Chapter XV. | ||
| Flogging | ||
| Night On Shore | ||
| State of Things On Board | ||
| San Diego | ||
| Chapter XVI. | ||
| Liberty-Day On Shore | ||
| Chapter XVII. | ||
| San Diego | ||
| Desertion | ||
| San Pedro Again | ||
| Easter Sunday | ||
| Chapter XVIII. | ||
| Easter Sunday | ||
| Italian Sailors | ||
| San Juan | ||
| San Diego Again | ||
| Life on Shore | ||
| Chapter XIX. | ||
| Sandwich-Islanders | ||
| Hide-Curing | ||
| Wood-Cutting | ||
| Coyotes | ||
| Rattlesnakes | ||
| Chapter XX. | ||
| New Comers | ||
| People at the Hide-Houses | ||
| Leisure | ||
| Pilgrim News from Home | ||
| Pilgrim Occupations on the Beach | ||
| California and its Inhabitants | ||
| Chapter XXI. | ||
| California and its Inhabitants | ||
| Chapter XXII. | ||
| Life on the Beach | ||
| The Alert | ||
| Chapter XXIII. | ||
| New Ship and Shipmates | ||
| A Race | ||
| My Watchmate, Tom Harris | ||
| San Diego Again | ||
| Chapter XXIV. | ||
| A Descent | ||
| A Hurried Departure | ||
| A New Shipmate | ||
| Chapter XXV. | ||
| Rumors of War | ||
| A Spouter | ||
| Sudden Slipping for a Southeaster | ||
| To Windward | ||
| A Dry Gale | ||
| Chapter XXVI. | ||
| San Francisco | ||
| Monterey Revisited | ||
| Chapter XVII. | ||
| Monterey Revisited | ||
| A Set-to | ||
| A Decayed Gentleman | ||
| A Contrabandista | ||
| A Fandango | ||
| Chapter XVIII. | ||
| A Victim | ||
| California Rangers-Beach-Combers | ||
| News From Home | ||
| Last Looks | ||
| Chapter XXIX. | ||
| Loading for Home | ||
| A Surprise | ||
| Last of an Old Friend | ||
| The Last Hide | ||
| A Hard Case | ||
| An Anchor, for Home! | ||
| The Alert and California | ||
| Homeward Bound | ||
| Chapter XXX. | ||
| Homeward Bound | ||
| Our Passenger, Professor Nuttall | ||
| Homeward Bound | ||
| Chapter XXXI. | ||
| Bad Prospects | ||
| First Touch of Cape Horn | ||
| Iceburgs | ||
| Temperance Ships | ||
| Lying-Up | ||
| Ice | ||
| Difficulty on Board | ||
| Change of Course | ||
| Straits of Magellan | ||
| Chapter XXXII. | ||
| Ice Again | ||
| Disappointment | ||
| Cape Horn | ||
| Land Ho! | ||
| Chapter XXXIII. | ||
| Cracking On | ||
| Progress Homeward | ||
| A Fine Sight | ||
| Fitting Ship | ||
| By-Plane | ||
| Chapter XXXIV. | ||
| An Escape | ||
| Equator | ||
| Tropical Squalls | ||
| Tropical Thunder-Storm | ||
| Chapter XXXV. | ||
| A Reef-Topsail Breeze | ||
| Scurvy | ||
| A Friend in Need | ||
| Preparing for Port | ||
| Gulf Stream | ||
| Chapter XXXVI. | ||
| Soundings | ||
| Sights About Home | ||
| Boston Harbo | ||
| Leaving the Ship | ||
| Twenty Four Years After | 432 |
Reading Group Guide
1. Discuss Dana's motives for the voyage. What do you feel was the predominating factor in his decision to undertake such a journey? What were the risks involved, and how serious do you feel they were? What is your view of Dana's momentous choice?
2. What do you make of Dana's attitude toward religion, and religious instruction? Do you agree or not? Why? Is his a perspective that is anachronistic, or not?
3. How does social class play a role in the book? Discuss the implications of Dana's background. How did it affect his experience on the ship? Did you find it important, or inconsequential?
4. What is your opinion of the book's stark realism? Does Dana have an agenda in writing the book? If so, what is it? Do you think the experience was a positive one for Dana, or not?
5. What is the role of nature and the outdoors for Dana? How does he view the American West? How does his voyage attest to his view of the outdoors? Does this view change throughout his experience on the ship? If so, how?
6. Discuss the contrasts between Captain Thompson and Captain Faucon. How do their leadership skills differ? Who is more effective, and why? Discuss Dana's book on a political level. What do his portrayals of each captain reveal?
7. Discuss the considerable shift in Dana's perspective as evidenced in 'Twenty-Four Years After.' How do you account for this change? Do you agree or disagree with the author's decision to replace the original final chapter with this later account? Why or why not?
Foreword
1. ?Discuss Dana?s motives for the voyage. What do you feel was the predominating factor in his decision to undertake such a journey? What were the risks involved, and how serious do you feel they were? What is your view of Dana?s momentous choice?
2. ?What do you make of Dana?s attitude toward religion, and religious instruction? Do you agree or not? Why? Is his a perspective that is anachronistic, or not?
3. ?How does social class play a role in the book? Discuss the implications of Dana?s background. How did it affect his experience on the ship? Did you find it important, or inconsequential?
4. ?What is your opinion of the book?s stark realism? Does Dana have an agenda in writing the book? If so, what is it? Do you think the experience was a positive one for Dana, or not?
5. ?What is the role of nature and the outdoors for Dana? How does he view the American West? How does his voyage attest to his view of the outdoors? Does this view change throughout his experience on the ship? If so, how?
6. ?Discuss the contrasts between Captain Thompson and Captain Faucon. How do their leadership skills differ? Who is more effective, and why? Discuss Dana?s book on a political level. What do his portrayals of each captain reveal?
7. ?Discuss the considerable shift in Dana?s perspective as evidenced in ?Twenty-Four Years After.? How do you account for this change? Do you agree or disagree with the author?s decision to replace the original final chapter with this later account? Why or why not?
