Richard Henry Dana Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast & Other

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Richard Henry Dana Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast & Other Voyages (LOA #161): Two Years Before the Mast / To Cuba and Back / Journal of a Voyage Round the World, 1859-1860 (Library of America)
- Richard Henry Dana, Jr and Two Years before the Mast
- To Cuba and Back
This volume collects three sea-going travel narratives by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., that span twenty-five years of maritime history, from the age of sail to the age of steam.

Suffering from persistent weakness in his eyes, Dana left Harvard at age nineteen and sailed from Boston in 1834 as a common seaman.Â Two Years Before the MastÂ (1840) is the classic account of his voyages around Cape Horn and time ashore in California in the decade before the Gold Rush. Written with an unprecedented realism that challenged the romanticism of previous maritime literature, Danaâ€™s narrative vividly portrays the daily routines and hardships of life at sea, the capriciousness and brutality of merchant ship captains and officers, and the beauty and danger of the southern oceans in winter. Included in an appendix is â€œTwenty-Four Years Afterâ€ (1869), in which Dana describes his return to California in 1859â€“1860 and the immense changes brought about by American annexation, the frenzy of the Gold Rush, and the growing commerce of â€œa new world, the awakened Pacific.â€

Dana first visited Cuba in the winter of 1859 while the possible annexation of the island was being debated in the U.S. Senate.Â To Cuba and BackÂ (1859) is his entertaining and enthusiastic account of his trip, during which he toured Havana and a sugar plantation; attended a bullfight; visited churches, hospitals, schools, and prisons; and investigated the impact on Cuban society of slavery and autocratic Spanish rule.

Journal of a Voyage Round the World, 1859â€“1860Â records the fourteen-month circumnavigation that took Dana to California, Hawaii, China, Japan, Malaya, Ceylon, India, Egypt, and Europe. Written with unflagging energy and curiosity, the journal provides fascinating vignettes of frontier life in California, missionary influence in Hawaii, the impact of the Taiping Rebellion and the Second Opium War on China, and the opening of Japan to the West, while capturing the transition from the age of sail to the faster, smaller world created by the steamship and the telegraph.

LIBRARY OF AMERICAÂ is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nationâ€™s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, Americaâ€™s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Country USA
Brand Library of America
Manufacturer Library of America
Binding Hardcover
Color Black
ReleaseDate 2005-10-06
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781931082839

Country	USA
Brand	Library of America
Manufacturer	Library of America
Binding	Hardcover
Color	Black
ReleaseDate	2005-10-06
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781931082839

Richard Henry Dana Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast & Other Voyages (LOA #161): Two Years Before the Mast / To Cuba and Back / Journal of a Voyage Round the World, 1859-1860 (Library of America)