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Dunlap, William
by Robert Beasecker (2000) DUNLAP, WILLIAM (1766-1839). William Dunlap, born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, showed considerable artistic aptitude at an early age and in 1784 was sent to England to study painting under Benjamin West. There, however, he became fascinated with the theater and, upon his arrival in New York three years later, soon…
Read MoreDungy, Camille
Interested in contributing Camille Dungy’s biography? Click here for more information.
Read MoreDunbar, Paul Laurence
by Fred M. Fetrow (2000) DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE (1872-1906). Best known for the dialect poetry suggested by the titles of his four published volumes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, the son of former slaves, also wrote a number of short stories and novels. His interest in the sea as a metaphorical medium is best exemplified in a…
Read MoreDumas, Henry
Interested in contributing Henry Dumas’ biography? Click here for more information.
Read MoreDrake, Samuel Adams
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast (1875)
Read MoreDouglass, Frederick
by Susan F. Beegel (2000) DOUGLASS, FREDERICK (1818-1895). Abolitionist, orator, social reformer, editor, author, and consul general to Haiti, Frederick Douglass was born into slavery as Frederick Augustus Bailey. He spent the early years of his childhood in Talbot County, Maryland, on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Separated in infancy from his black slave…
Read MoreDoty, Mark
by Cara Murray (2011) MARK DOTY (1953- ). From his birth in 1953 until age seventeen, when he left his parents’ home in Tucson, Arizona, Mark Doty moved frequently. In Firebird (1992), Doty’s memoir of childhood, he recalls living in seven houses in seven years. Although he spent much of his twenties in Iowa, where…
Read MoreDoolittle, Hilda
by Gregg Allen Walker (2000) D[OOLITTLE]., H[ILDA]. (1886-1961). H. D., a poet, novelist, dramatist, and translator whose works often incorporate sea imagery, was born in Pennsylvania. Childhood visits to the seacoasts of Rhode Island and Maine first inspired H. D., best known for her imagist poetry, to write about the sea. “Hermes of the Ways”…
Read MoreDoner, Mary Frances
by Mary DeJong Obuchowski (2000) DONER, MARY FRANCES (1893-1985). Mary Frances Doner set many of her books near her birthplace, Port Huron, Michigan. She supplied around 250 short stories for pulp magazines early in her career and in the 1930s began producing novels and nonfiction, over twenty-eight books altogether. Her Great Lakes novels include Fool’s…
Read MoreDisturnell, John
by David D. Anderson (2000) DISTURNELL, JOHN (1801-1877). A printer and book dealer, as well as librarian of the Cooper Union, John Disturnell, who lived most of his life in New York City when he was not traveling, was a prolific writer of travel books and guides to travel in North America. His first and…
Read MoreDickinson, Emily
by Jane Donahue Eberwein (2000) DICKINSON, EMILY [ELIZABETH] (1830-1886). Although the great American poet Emily Dickinson is frequently quoted as saying she “never saw the Sea” (P 1052), it seems probable that the reclusive native of Amherst, Massachusetts, may have glimpsed the Atlantic coast on her occasional girlhood trips to Boston or when she and…
Read MoreDickey, James
by Brian Anderson (2000) DICKEY, JAMES [LAFAYETTE] (1923-1997). James Dickey, noted poet, novelist, and critic, was born in Atlanta, Georgia. During World War II, he served in a night-fighter squadron in the South Pacific. In the late 1940s he attended Vanderbilt University, during which time he also began writing and publishing poems. He received a…
Read MoreDey, Richard
by Leah Feldman (2013) DEY, RICHARD (1945-) is an American poet born in 1945 who writes of New England and the West Indies. As a teenager he sailed in the Schooner Tabor Boy out of Marion, Massachusetts. After serving in the US Army as a journalist in Washington DC, he graduated from Harvard College in…
Read MoreDesrosiers, Leo-Paul
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) DESROSIERS, LEO-PAUL (1896-1967). Leo-Paul Desrosiers was born in Berthier-en-Haut, Quebec, a village on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River northeast of Montreal. His happy childhood provided him with material for his first work, Ames et Paysages (1922), and a job as a government news editor gave him the time…
Read MoreDelano, Amasa
by James L. Gray (2000) DELANO, AMASA (1763-1823). Amasa Delano, whose Voyages and Travels (1817) was the source for Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” (1855), was born in Duxbury, Massachusetts. After serving briefly in the Continental army during the American Revolution, Delano began a lifelong career as sailor, ship captain, and occasional shipbuilder, often in conjunction…
Read MoreDean, Harry
by Boyd Childress (2000) DEAN, HARRY [FOSTER] (1864-1935). Published in 1929 in Boston, Berlin, and London, Harry Dean’s unique sea narrative and remarkable autobiography was entitled Umbala in Britain and The Pedro Gorino in the United States. Dean was born in Philadelphia in 1864, a descendant of Paul Cuffe, the first noted black sea captain,…
Read MoreDavis, Richard Harding
by Linda Ledford-Miller (2000) DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING (1864-1916). Born in Philadelphia, Richard Harding Davis was the first child born to the journalist L. Clarke Davis and the fiction writer Rebecca Harding Davis. He soon followed in his parents’ footsteps as a newspaperman and later the author of short stories, novels, and plays. Davis was not content…
Read MoreDavis, Rebecca Harding
by Daniel W. Lane (2000) DAVIS, REBECCA HARDING (1830-1910). Although best known for her gritty depiction of factory life in her story “Life in the Iron-Mills” (1861), Rebecca Harding Davis frequently used vivid sea imagery in her writings. Intimately familiar with marshes, sand dunes, shipwreck legends, and the moods of the sea through summers spent…
Read MoreDanticat, Edwidge
Interested in contributing Edwidge Danticat’s biography? Click here for more information.
Read MoreDanforth, Harry (Charles Jacob Peterson)
Dana, Richard Henry, Sr.
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) DANA, RICHARD HENRY, SR. (1787-1879). Richard Henry Dana Sr. was born into a prominent Cambridge, Massachusetts, family. He was educated at Harvard, leaving without a degree in 1807. He studied law and passed the bar in 1811 but showed little interest in practicing law. In 1814 he collaborated with others to establish…
Read MoreDana, Richard Henry, Jr.
by Hugh Egan (2000) DANA, RICHARD HENRY, JR. (1815-1882). Son of a genteel poet and member of a prominent Boston family, Richard Henry Dana Jr. gained literary fame by turning his back on his Brahmin upbringing, sailing aboard a merchant vessel, and subsequently describing the life of a common sailor in Two Years before the Mast (1840).…
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