p. 10-11: So, to The Man Who Could Not Go, I address this book ---to the elderly, white-waistcoated city magnate, grave autocrat of his clerkly kingdom (never lie to me, sir what was your favourite reading in the sixties, and why were you a very fair pistol shot, right up to the time when you were made junior manager ?)—to the serious family solicitor, enjoying his father’s good old practice and house, and counting among the furnishings of the latter, a shelf of Marryats, Mayne Reids, and Michael Scotts, wonder fully free of dust—to the comfortable clergyman, immersed in parish cares, who has the oddest fancy at times for standing on dock-heads, and snifling up odours of rope and tar—to all of you, the army of the brave, unwilling, more or less resigned Left Behinds, who have forgotten years ago, or who will never forget while spiring masts stand thick against blue skies, and keen salt winds wake madness in the brain—to all I say: Greeting l and may the tale of another’s happier chance send, from the fluttering pages of a book, a breath of the far-off lands and the calling sea.
In the Strange South Seas.
- Maritime Reading
Five Years before the Mast, or Life in the Forecastle, Aboard of a Whaler and Man of War.
- Maritime Reading
An actual 1837 Atlantic trip aboard a Sag Harbor whaler, told in fictional form, a well-disguised fictional account of sailors’ life, near-mutiny, and desertion, etc. The hero is a novel reader (see p. 61-2, 92, 139), and the author an accomplished writer.
New Light on Herman Melville’s Cruise in the Charles and Henry,
- Maritime Reading
Second section is on the books aboard the ship Charles and Henry on which Melville shipped in 1840 for five years.
The American Whaleman: A Study of Life and Labor in the Whaling Industry.
- Maritime Reading
A very engaging introduction to life aboard the American whaler, the business enterprise behind it, the contrast of cabin and forecastle life, as well as details of the actual pursuit.
Scientific American Handbook of Travel. With Hints for the Ocean Voyage, for European Tours and a Practical Guide to London and Paris.
- Maritime Reading
A compendium of shipboard needs including recommendations for desirable reading on lengthy ocean voyages.
The Seaman’s Library Manual.
- Maritime Reading
Intro. By Christopher Morley: I have seen the Green Box [American Seamen’s Friend Society library boxes] in use aboard American ships at sea, and I know what it means…to the reader off duty.
The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore.
- Maritime Reading
p. 42-3, description of life of impressed seaman: With books he was for many years ‘very scantily supplied.’ It was not till 1812, indeed, that the Admiralty, shocked by the discovery that he had practically nothing to elevate his mind but daily association with the quarter-deck, began to pour into the fleet copious supplies of literature for his use. Thereafter the sailor could beguile his leisure with such books as the Old Chaplain’s Farewell Letter, Wilson’s Maxims, The Whole Duty of Man, Secker’s Duties of the Sick, and, lest returning health should dissipate the piety begotten of his ailments, Gibson’s Advice after Sickness. Thousands of pounds were spent upon this improving literature, which was distributed to the fleet in strict accordance with the amount of storage room available at the various dockyards. [Footnote: Ad. Accountant-General, Misc. (Various), No. 106—Accounts of the Rev. Archdeacon Owen, Chaplain-General to the Fleet, 1812-7.]
The Big Sea: An Autobiography….
- Maritime Reading
p. 3: Melodramatic maybe, it seems to me now. But then it was like throwing a million bricks out of my heart when I threw the book into the water. I leaned over the rail of the S.S. Malone and threw the books as far as I could out into the sea—all the books I had had at Columbia, and all the books I had lately bought to read.
A History of the Whale Fisheries, from the Basque Fisheries of the Tenth Century to the Hunting of the Finner Whale at the Present Date.
- Maritime Reading
p. 178, [don’t know that this is relevant but worth checking—books here may refer to account books ]: … as they claim to know the procedure of the former company having their books in their possession, they are first in the field and " that the design manifestly tending to the increase of navjgation, and the benefit of all His Majesty's subjects, it is humbly hoped, will receive countenance and encouragement."
Seamen’s Missions: Their Origin and Early Growth.
- Maritime Reading
The classic study on the subject.
Naval Stories.
- Maritime Reading
I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Life on the Ocean, Or Twenty Years at Sea: Being the Personal Adventures of the Author.
- Maritime Reading
A Baltimore Captain in the Merchant Service who gives an autobiographical travel diary while intending to give a true picture of life at sea “blending with it those wholesome moral and religious truths, which should be inculcated upon the minds of seamen (p. 4).
At the Mountains of Madness
- Maritime Reading
First published in 1931, this phantasmagoric combination of science fiction and horror novel is located on the high plateau of Antarctic, reached by airplane, but discovering the world’s highest mountains and remains of an ancient ‘civilization’ come back to life and destructive of the expedition.
The Arctic Whalers.
- Maritime Reading
An engaging history of Arctic whaling.
Round the Horn before the Mast.
- Maritime Reading