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Title details for Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. - Available

Two Years Before the Mast

by Richard Henry Dana Jr.
Bernard Mayes
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available

Richard Henry Dana referred to this book as "a voice from the sea." Influencing such authors as Conrad and Melville, it has become a maritime classic that has inflicted legions of men with a passion for the sea.

Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 on the brigPilgrimfor a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Dana Point was named as a result of this journey. Drawing from his journals,Two Years before the Mastgives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.

This is a breathtaking true storyof adventure on the high seas.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 8, 2005

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781483068855
      • File size: 475743 KB
      • Duration: 16:31:07

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 1290
    • Text Difficulty: 10-12

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In 1834, the author left Harvard to become a common sailor bound from Boston, around Cape Horn, to California. His record of his experiences provides much detail about shipboard life at that time. As is typical of books about sailing ships, the technical vocabulary of the ship's parts and the crew's daily tasks finds little elaboration. However, Dana's descriptions of shipboard life--food, work, and the captain--come in the English spoken in early-nineteenth-century Boston, which gives the story an authenticity that engages readers to this day. Narrator Kirby Heyborne reads in a soft voice some would find effete. For a hardened sailor, it wouldn't fit, but Dana was young, college educated, and new to the sea, so Heyborne's portrayal is spot-on. Many nautical terms aren't pronounced as they're spelled--for example, "forecastle" and "boatswain"--but Heyborne gets them all right. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:1290
  • Text Difficulty:10-12

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