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Averill, Charles
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) AVERILL, CHARLES (1825?-1868). Charles Averill wrote around a dozen adventure and romance novels between 1847 and 1850, about half of which take place wholly or mostly at sea. The Pirates of Cape Ann (1848) is representative. Here, “Paul Perril, the Pirate,” scourge of postcolonial Cape Ann, Massachusetts, is estranged from his family…
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by R.D Madison (2000) AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES (1785-1851). Born in Haiti and raised in France, John James Audubon became the world’s premier bird artist with the publication of The Birds of America (1827-1838). Audubon accompanied his life-size drawings with five volumes of text, the Ornithological Biography (1831-1839). In the first three of these volumes, Audubon varied his bird biographies…
Read MoreAshley, Clifford
By Nicole Williams (2020) CLIFFORD WARREN ASHLEY (1881-1947). Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1881, Ashley enjoyed a successful career as a maritime artist and historian of the American whaling industry. His work romanticized New England’s whaling past as the region rapidly industrialized in the early twentieth century. During his childhood, Ashley witnessed the decline…
Read MoreArgento, Dominick
by Jill B. Gidmark (2000) ARGENTO, DOMINICK (1927- 2019). Son of Sicilian immigrant parents, Dominick Argento won a Pulitzer Prize in music in 1975 for his mezzo-soprano song cycle From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. Argento has lived near water, and his works are inspired occasionally by the sea and frequently by literature. His chamber…
Read MoreAmes, Nathaniel
by Hugh Egan (2000) AMES, NATHANIEL (1805-1835). Son of the Federalist statesman Fisher Ames and grandson of a famous colonial almanac publisher, Nathaniel Ames was a blueblood who went to sea and later wrote about it. In this way he served as a literary forerunner of Richard Henry Dana Jr., Herman Melville and others. Like…
Read MoreAllen, Hervey
Anthony Adverse (1946)
Read MoreAldrich, Thomas Bailey
by Frank Rotsaert (2000) ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1907). Thomas Bailey Aldrich, known chiefly as the author of The Story of a Bad Boy (1869), edited Every Saturday (1866-1874) and The Atlantic Monthly (1881-1890) and also wrote poems, short stories, and five novels. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Aldrich lived for brief periods in the seaports of New York and New Orleans,…
Read MoreAlbee, Edward
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) ALBEE, EDWARD (1928-2016). A leading contemporary playwright, Edward Albee made his early reputation writing spare, psychological dramas, of which his most acclaimed and widely known remains Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (first perf. 1962; pub. 1962). An early one-act, The Sandbox (first perf. 1960; pub. 1960), employing such stylistic conceits…
Read MoreAiken, Conrad
by John T. Shawcross (2000) [AIKEN, CONRAD POTTER], “SAMUEL JEAKE JR.” (1889-1973). A friend and contemporary of T. S. Eliot, Conrad Aiken divided his time between England and the United States before settling in Massachusetts in 1947. He used the pen name “Samuel Jeake Jr.” during 1934-1936 as the London correspondent for the New Yorker, although…
Read MoreAdams, William Taylor (“Oliver Optic”)
Adams, Bertram Martin
by Bert Bender (2000) ADAMS, BERTRAM MARTIN [BILL ADAMS] ( 1879-1953 ). Bill Adams was born in England to American parents. He left college to go to sea at age seventeen in a career that lasted four or five years and logged seven passages around Cape Horn. Before his sailing career was ended by ill…
Read MoreAckerman, Diane
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