Item #66335 Two Years Before the Mast. Richard Henry DANA, Jr.
Two Years Before the Mast

Two Years Before the Mast. A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1844.

DANA, Richard Henry, Jr.. Two Years Before the Mast. A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1844.

Early edition. Small octavo. 483pp. Original full brown pebbled cloth, gilt-stamped on spine. Some foxing throughout, edges bumped, spine split and a bit chipped on top with rubbing to extremities. A very good copy.

"Dana, a man of great energy, wrote Two Years before the Mast and taught elocution at Harvard while attending classes there. His book, published in 1840, was an immediate success in the United States and in England, and it permanently influenced works about the sea, making their authors both more realistic about and also more cognizant of the common sailor's plight. About thirty books with titles echoing Dana's were published by 1860. The most notable literary beneficiary was Herman Melville, who in Chapter 24 of White-Jacket (1850) calls Two Years before the Mast "unmatchable" and whose Moby-Dick (1851) shows several traces of its influence. " (American National Biography).

BAL 4434.

HBS 66335.

$200.

Price: $200.00

Item #66335