Two Years Before the Mast

First published in 1840, this narrative is Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s account of shipping as a common sailor on the brig Pilgrim from Boston around Cape Horn to Spanish California. He describes the hide trade along the coast, the work of curing and loading hides, the hierarchy of officers and forecastle, flogging, and the ports of Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Monterey. A return in the Alert closes the voyage. The book is a sailor's documentary of work and place, not a novel and not a later tourist's California.

Bound in dark brown cloth with an oval paper cover-label printed in brown. Endleaves printed with a ship in brown. Pale brown slipcase.