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Lowell, Robert, Jr.
by Sally C. Hoople (2000) LOWELL, ROBERT, JR [TRAILL SPENCE]. (1917-1977). Robert Lowell, the son of a naval officer, recalled in the poem, “Commander Lowell: 1887-1950” (Life Studies, 1959) how his father, in his postnaval life, would boom “Anchors Aweigh” in the bathtub and would frequent the Sunday Yacht Club and the Maritime Museum at Salem,…
Read MoreLowell, James Russell
by Brendan A. Rapple (2000) LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL (1819-1891). James Russell Lowell, poet, literary and social critic, editor, abolitionist, scholar of comparative literature, Harvard professor, diplomat, and consummate traveler, frequently crossed the Atlantic to visit Britain and the Continent. On 12 July 1851, he sailed from Boston in the bark Sultana on his first trip to…
Read MoreLovecraft, Howard Phillips
by Grove Koger (2000) LOVECRAFT, H[OWARD]. P[HILLIPS]. (1890-1937). Born in Providence, Rhode Island, H. P. Lovecraft subsequently used that seaport and such Massachusetts ports as Salem, Marblehead, and Newburyport (which he refashioned into “Arkham,” “Kingsport,” and “Innsmouth,” respectively) in much of his weird fiction. In doing so, he drew not only upon Salem’s importance in the…
Read MoreLongfellow, Henry Wadsworth
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH (1807-1882). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, at a time when that seaport was second in New England only to Boston in total tonnage engaged in maritime trade. Close to half a century later, in the poem “My Lost Youth” (1855)–his reminiscences of those early days–Longfellow’s…
Read MoreLondon, Jack
by Susan Irvin Gatti (2000) LONDON, JACK (1876-1916). Born John Griffith Chaney in San Francisco in 1876, Jack London was deserted by his father and raised in Oakland by his mother and his stepfather, whose surname he adopted. London worked at many jobs as a teenager in order to buy a sloop for oyster pirating…
Read MoreLodge, George Cabot
by Dana L. Peterson (2000) LODGE, GEORGE CABOT (1873-1909). Son of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and acquaintance of Edith Wharton, Henry James, and his own biographer, Henry Adams, the poet and verse dramatist George Cabot Lodge was well acquainted with the sea. Growing up in the coastal Massachusetts town of Nahant and, as an adult, summering…
Read MoreLittle, George
Life on the Ocean, or Twenty Years at Sea (1843)
Read MoreLindbergh, Anne Morrow
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) LINDBERGH, ANNE MORROW (1906-2001). Anne Morrow Lindbergh was born in 1906 in Englewood, New Jersey. Her father, Dwight Whitney Morrow, was ambassador to Mexico when Charles Lindbergh visited Mexico City in 1928, soon after he had completed his famous solo transatlantic crossing. Lindbergh and Anne Morrow met in Mexico City, and…
Read MoreLincoln, Joseph Crosby
by Susan Raidy Klein (2000) LINCOLN, JOSEPH C[ROSBY]. (1870-1944). Joseph C. Lincoln, the descendant of a long line of a seafarers, was a prolific author of best-selling verses, stories, and novels that portrayed life along the shore of Cape Cod with nostalgia and humor. The son of Captain Joseph and Emily (Crosby) Lincoln, the author was…
Read MoreLieberman, Laurence
by Erika J. Waters (2000) LIEBERMAN, LAURENCE [JAMES] (1935- ). Four years at the College of the Virgin Islands in the 1960s were critical years for poet Laurence Lieberman, for it was then that he discovered the Caribbean. Since those formative years, from his home in the Midwest, Lieberman has systematically traveled to nearly every Caribbean…
Read MoreLeggett, William
by Hugh Egan (2000) LEGGETT, WILLIAM (1801-1839). William Leggett was a midshipman-turned-author who helped to develop the sea yarn into popular reading. In the course of his naval service, Leggett contracted yellow fever in the West Indies and suffered the persecutions of a commander in the Mediterranean for his ability to quote Shakespeare. Following a duel,…
Read MoreLeech, Samuel
Thirty Years from Home, or A Voice from the Main Deck (1843)
Read MoreLedyard, John
by Mary Malloy (2000) LEDYARD, JOHN (1751-1789). The only American to write an account of Captain James Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific Ocean, John Ledyard was born in Groton, Connecticut. After the death of his mariner father and the remarriage of his mother, the young Ledyard was sent to live with his paternal grandfather in…
Read MoreLe Guin, Ursula K.
by Dennis Berthold (2000) LE GUIN, URSULA K[ROEBER]. (1929-2018). Born in Berkeley, California, Ursula K. Le Guin earned her B.A. at Radcliffe College in 1951 and her M.A. in French and Renaissance literature at Columbia University in 1952. Author of over fifty books of fiction, short stories, poetry, and criticism, she is usually considered a children’s…
Read MoreLarsen, Nella
Interested in contributing to Nella Larsen’s biography? Click here for more information.
Read MoreLarcom, Lucy
by Thomas R. Brooks (2000) LARCOM, LUCY (1824-1893). Lucy Larcom was a prolific and highly regarded writer of descriptive and religious verse, short fiction, and inspirational prose in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born on the Massachusetts North Shore in Beverly, she lived and worked as a young girl in the Lowell mills, taught…
Read MoreLane, Carl
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) LANE, CARL [DANIEL] (1899-1995). Carl Lane, a nautical writer and illustrator born in New York City, developed his love for the sea while vacationing in Maine, where he eventually settled. Lane wrote The Fleet in the Forest (1943), a Great Lakes historical novel about the construction of Commodore Oliver Perry’s Lake…
Read MoreLaing, Alexander
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) LAING, ALEXANDER [KINNAN] (1903-1976). Alexander Laing was the author of over twenty books of nautical fiction and history and a longtime librarian at Dartmouth College. Laing grew up in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, entered Dartmouth in 1921, and left in 1925 before completing his degree. In the fall of…
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