Two Years Before the Mast

About the book

Leaving college because of trouble with his eyesight, Richard Henry Dana signs on as an ordinary seaman and sails from Boston around Cape Horn to California. His account follows the labor behind the voyage: handling sails, keeping watches, enduring weather, and loading the hides that drive the coastal trade. Shore visits introduce the settlements and social arrangements of California before the American takeover, while shipboard experience exposes discipline and unequal power at close range. Dana's education gives him a distinctive observing voice without removing him from the crew's physical work. This text also includes his later return in 'Twenty-Four Years After,' setting remembered places beside a transformed California and extending the voyage into an inquiry about change.

• Maritime labor
• Authority
• California before statehood

Why read it

Read it for seafaring described from the working deck and for a coastal world caught before dramatic change.

English text including 'Twenty-Four Years After'