"An illustrated edition of the firsthand account of the whaler Essex's attack and sinking by a sperm whale, the inspiration for Moby-Dick. Includes a new introduction and supplementary extracts from a variety of sources"--

Great American Shipwreck Stories is a magnificent collection of gripping accounts of a ship's encounter with a great whale or an overwhelming monsoon or a disastrous passage through the Straits of Magellan, leading to a wreck and a crew's harrowing plight for survival on the open seas or on a desert island. Capturing all the elements of ancient and powerful tragedy, this book is chockful of thrilling tales of survival - as well as a frightful examination of man's darkest impulses - which allow the reader a gruesome glimpse behind the veil of honor and bravery that history often ascribes to such men of the sea. These are all stories that have endured the test of time, and have attracted discerning readers for generations. Includes stories by Joseph Conrad, Erskine Childers, Joshua Slocum, James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Richard Henry Dana, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Hakluyt, Owen Chase, and many others.

First US Edition -- The first comprehensive book on whaling wives at sea written for a general audience.

A Los Angeles Times Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007 A Boston Globe Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007 Amazon.com Editors pick as one of the 10 best history books of 2007 Winner of the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History, given by the North American Society for Oceanic History "The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation." —Nathaniel Philbrick The epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales. "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme," Herman Melville proclaimed, and this absorbing history demonstrates that few things can capture the sheer danger and desperation of men on the deep sea as dramatically as whaling. Eric Jay Dolin begins his vivid narrative with Captain John Smith's botched whaling expedition to the New World in 1614. He then chronicles the rise of a burgeoning industry—from its brutal struggles during the Revolutionary period to its golden age in the mid-1800s when a fleet of more than 700 ships hunted the seas and American whale oil lit the world, to its decline as the twentieth century dawned. This sweeping social and economic history provides rich and often fantastic accounts of the men themselves, who mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, scrimshawed, and recorded their experiences in journals and memoirs. Containing a wealth of naturalistic detail on whales, Leviathan is the most original and stirring history of American whaling in many decades.

A quarterly journal of maritime history.

This exhaustive bibliography is indispensable for scholars and students of whaling history. It includes published diaries, autobiographies, narratives, scholarly works, adult and juvenile fiction, dissertations, and newspaper and periodical articles pertaining to whaling in the Pacific. Its full appendixes and indexes for islands, vessels, and captains make it a researcher's dream.

Bibliographical notes: p. 96-100.

This pamphlet contains a detailed overview of the history of New England whaling, both its rise and decline. Though whaling was a global industry, it was American whalemen, and New Englanders in particular, who would come to dominate the oceans. By the mid-19th century, during the golden age of whaling, American whalemen made up more than three-quarters of the world's fleet. The profits from this industry helped to fuel the country's expansion westward, making the United States a global powerhouse a century before it became a geo-political superpower.