The Annotated Two Years Before the Mast

by Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Overview

A true story of the battered life of a foremast crewman, Two Years Before the Mast is Richard Henry Dana’s classic travel narrative, which inspired canonical works such as Moby Dick and Sailing Alone Around the World. As Rod Scher follows Dana (the Harvard dropout-turned-sailor) on his voyages around North America, he annotates Dana’s tale with critiques, tie-ins to today, and little-known facts about both the book and the milieu of Dana’s time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781574093100
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/07/2013
Pages:	408
Sales rank:	894,374
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Rod Scher received his MEd from the University of Oregon. He is a longtime boating enthusiast and former English teacher, as well as an experienced writer and editor with multiple books and dozens of magazine articles to his credit. The former editor of Smart Computing magazine, Scher is also the author of Sailing by Starlight: The Remarkable Voyage of Globe Star and Leveling the Playing Field: The Democratization of Technology, and the editor/annotator of an edition of Joshua Slocum’s classic nautical memoir Sailing Alone Around the World. He lives in Depoe Bay, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Introduction Rod Scher vii

Preface 1

I Departure 4

II First Impressions-"Sail Ho!" 7

III Ship's Duties-Tropics 14

IV A Rogue-Trouble on Board-"Land Ho!"-Pompero-Cape Horn 20

V Cape Horn-A Visit 28

VI Loss of a Man-Superstition 37

VII Juan Fernandez-The Pacific 43

VIII "Tarring Down"-Daily Life-"Going AFT"-California 51

IX California-A South-Easter 57

X A South-Easter-Passage Up The Coast 65

XI Passage up the Coast-Monterey 70

XII Life at Monterey 75

XIII Trading-A British Sailor 78

XIV Santa Barbara-Hide-Droghing-Harbor Duties-Discontent-San Pedro 89

XV A Flogging-A Night on Shore-The State of Things on Board-San Diego 101

XVI Liberty-Day on Shore 115

XVII San Diego-A Desertion-San Pedro Again-Beating the Coast 123

XVIII Easter Sunday-"Sail Ho!"-Whales-San Juan-Romance of Hide-Droghing-San Diego Again 131

XIX The Sandwich Islanders-Hide-Curing-Wood-Cutting-Rattle-Snakes-Newcomers 145

XX Leisure-News from Home-"Burning the Water" 161

XXI California and its Inhabitants 170

XXII Life on Shore-The Alert 176

XXIII New Ship and Shipmates-My Watchmate 183

XXIV San Diego Again-A Descent-Hurried Departure-A New Shipmate 202

XXV Rumors of War-A Spouter-Slipping for a South-Easter-A Gale 210

XXVI San Francisco-Monterey 228

XXVII The Sunday Wash-Up-On Shore-A Set-To-A Grandee-"Sail Ho!"-A Fandango 237

XXVIII An Old Friend-A Victim-California Rangers-News from Home-Last Looks 249

XXIX Loading for Home-A Surprise-Last of an Old Friend-The Last Hide-A Hard Case-Up Anchor, For Home!-Homeward Bound 264

XXX Beginning the Long Return Voyage-A Scare 287

XXXI Bad Prospects-First Touch of Cape Horn-Icebergs -Temperance Ships-Lying-Up-Ice-Difficulty on Board -Change of Course- Straits of Magellan 301

XXXII Ice Again-A Beautiful Afternoon-Cape Horn-"Land Ho!"-Heading for Home 325

XXXIII Cracking On-Progress Homeward-A Pleasant Sunday-A Fine Sight-By-Play 337

XXXIV Narrow Escapes-The Equator-Tropical Squalls-A Thunder Storm 349

XXXV A Double Reef-Top-Sail Breeze-Scurvy-A Friend in Need -Preparing for Port-The Gulf Stream 357

XXXVI Soundings-Sights from Home-Boston Harbor-Leaving the Ship 366

Concluding Chapter 376

Acknowledgments 395

Editorial Reviews

An enjoyable and fascinating look at a [classic]. The modern reader navigating Dana’s story is given a global view in retrospect, which adds much to Dana’s narrative and offers a glimpse of the views and opinions of that time and place. Scher’s The AnnotatedTwo Years Before the Mast takes a classic tome and repackages it with seafaring terms defined and historical references in place, thereby transforming it into a gripping tale for any avid sailor, history buff, or literary aficionado to enjoy.

Patricia Wood

A worthy addition to any collection. Readers new to the Age of Sail will find the annotations helpful and enrich their reading of Dana’s narrative. Those familiar with sailing ships will learn interesting details that may have been overlooked or unknown in earlier readings of this classic.

Pirates and Privateers

Rod Scher is an ideally informative and amiable companion as he follows Dana on his exciting and exhausting voyage—he places Dana fully in his time and place, offering historical and cultural contexts for the writer's experiences, observations, and expressions. Scher knows how to inspire a sense of historical imagination in his readers, without forgetting who we are now. Scher can be proud of his own achievement in bringing such factual detail and humane judgment to this edition.

Stephen M. Buhler

Rod Scher has done it again, this time with his brilliant annotation. .. . Scher’s annotation reopened this classic for me. This is a careful and thoughtful work, never dry and often with a subtle twist of humor, yet always sensitive to Dana’s themes. Reading this annotation brings young Dana’s chronicle into sharp, poignant relief in an almost new and very exciting way.

E. Michael Jackson