Two Years Before The Mast

Two Years Before The Mast

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840.<p> While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles which affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway) and being something of a non-conformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor on a voyage around Cape Horn on the brig Pilgrim. He returned to Massachusetts two years later aboard the Alert (which left California sooner than the Pilgrim). <p> He kept a diary throughout the voyage, and, after returning, he wrote a recognized American classic, <i>Two Years Before the Mast</i>, published in 1840, the same year of his admission to the bar.