Two Years Before the Mast

A classic of maritime literature and one of the most vivid firsthand accounts of life at sea ever written, Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr. is the true story of the author's voyage as a common sailor from Boston around Cape Horn to the California coast in 1834. Dana left Harvard to go to sea hoping to restore his failing eyesight, and what he found there changed him profoundly. His unflinching account of the harsh conditions, brutal discipline and camaraderie of life before the mast is as gripping and immediate today as when it was first published in 1840.

This handsome Folio Society edition, published in London in 1986 with an introduction by Mervyn Horder and atmospheric drawings by Ian Ribbons, is bound in dark brown cloth with gilt spine lettering and features beautiful maritime pictorial endpapers. It comes complete with its original slipcase.