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Murphy, Robert Cushman
by R. D. Madison (2000) MURPHY, ROBERT CUSHMAN (1887-1973). Born in Brooklyn, Robert Cushman Murphy graduated from Brown University in 1911. The following year he married Grace E. Barstow and embarked on the whaler Daisy for the South Atlantic. A naturalist nominally in search of pelagic birds, Murphy proved an able chronicler of shipboard life as…
Read MoreMulzac, Hugh
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Read MoreMowat, Farley
by Boyd Childress (2000) MOWAT, FARLEY [MCGILL] (1921-2014). Farley Mowat is one of Canada’s more popular and controversial writers. Born 12 May 1921, in Belleview, Ontario, Mowat graduated from the University of Toronto in 1949. He spent two years during World War II as an infantry officer in the Canadian army. Before completing his degree,…
Read MoreMosley, Robert
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Read MoreMorrison, Toni
by Christian Loriel Lucas (2020) MORRISON, TONI (1931-2019). Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorrain, Ohio. She was given the baptismal name of Chloe Anthony, and chose “Toni” as her nickname when a college student. She earned her BA in English at historically Black Howard University, and then earned her MA in English at…
Read MoreMurray, Lieut. (Maturin Murray Ballou)
Morrell, Benjamin
by Haskell Springer (2000) MORRELL, BENJAMIN (1795-1839). Benjamin Morrell, sealing captain and explorer, was born in Rye, New York, the son of a shipbuilder. His early experiences included being twice captured by the British during the War of 1812 and spending over two and a half years in prison. Subsequently, he made a number of deep-sea…
Read MoreMorrell, Abby Jane
by Haskell Springer (2000) MORRELL, ABBY JANE [WOOD] (1809-l???). The cousin and second wife of Captain Benjamin Morrell, Abby Jane Wood married the captain when she was fifteen. She accompanied him on the last of his four voyages of commerce and exploration, in the schooner Antarctic (1829-1831). Apparently emulating his account of his ventures in his…
Read MoreMoore, Ruth
by Tina M. Aronis (2000) MOORE, RUTH (1903-1989). Ruth Moore was born on Gott’s Island, Maine, where she lived for thirteen years before moving to the mainland to continue her education. She graduated from New York State College for Teachers in 1925 but did not pursue a teaching career. She worked for a time in New…
Read MoreMoore, Kathleen Dean
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Read MoreMoore, Marianne
by Thomas R. Brooks (2000) MOORE, MARIANNE [CRAIG] (1887-1972). A member of the generation of poets that included T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore was highly regarded by her contemporaries for poetry that was metrically unique and that characteristically subjected her close observations of the physical world to the transforming power…
Read MoreMoore, Christopher
by Mira Dock (2000) MOORE, CHRISTOPHER K. (1957- ). Christopher Moore has lived on the California coast for over twenty years, using his experiences on diving and fishing boats around the world in two offbeat novels. Island of the Sequined Love Nun (1997) focuses on the protagonist’s job offer on Alualu Island northwest of Micronesia, his…
Read MoreMitchell, Joseph
by Eleanore MacLean (2014) MITCHELL, JOSEPH (1908-1996). Joseph Mitchell grew up in Fairmont, North Carolina, a farming town in the state’s coastal plains. In 1929 Mitchell moved to New York City and began his career working as a crime reporter and feature writer for The World, The Herald Tribune, and The World Telegram. In 1931 he…
Read MoreMichener, James A.
by Grove Koger (2000) MICHENER, JAMES A[LBERT]. (1907-1997). Prolific novelist James A. Michener was rescued as a foundling by a widow living in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Years later, having taught high school and college, Michener found his nascent career as a textbook editor interrupted by World War II, an experience that altered his life dramatically. As a…
Read MoreMetcalf, Paul
by Donald Yannella (2000) METCALF, PAUL [CUTHBERT] (1917-1999). Since his three-volume Collected Works was published (1996-1998), Paul Metcalf’s writings are widely available. He is probably best understood as a member of the Black Mountain group; although he never attended that experimental North Carolina college, his early work was printed by the Black Mountaineer Jonathan Williams at…
Read MoreMerwin, W.S.
by Michael P. Branch (2000) MERWIN, W[ILLIAM]. S[TANLEY]. (1927-2019). Born in New York City and educated at Princeton University, W. S. Merwin has lived and worked in France, Portugal, Majorca, New York, and, in later years, Hawai’i. The author of four books of prose and the translator of eighteen books of poetry and prose, Merwin has…
Read MoreMerwin, Samuel
by Robert Beasecker (2000) MERWIN, SAMUEL (1874-1936). Born in Evanston, Illinois, Samuel Merwin attended Northwestern University but did not graduate. His literary career began with the publication of two popularly acclaimed novels, The Short Line War (1899) and Calumet “K” (1901), written in collaboration with his boyhood friend Henry Kitchell Webster. Following the separation of this…
Read MoreMeredith, William
by Daniel W. Lane (2000) MEREDITH, WILLIAM [MORRIS] (1919-2007). With nine volumes of poetry to his credit, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems (1987) and the National Book Award-winning Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems (1997), William Meredith is also known for his critical studies and translations. While his earliest works…
Read MoreMelville, Herman
by Mary K. Bercaw Edwards (2000) MELVILLE, HERMAN (1819-1891). More than any other American author, Herman Melville used the sea as setting and concept to create great literature. With broad-ranging and deep philosophical interests, his books are far more than adventure stories. In his works, Melville struggles with human interactions in a diverse and complex world,…
Read MoreMcPhee, John
by Robert C. Foulke (2000) McPHEE, JOHN [ANGUS] (1931- ). John McPhee, master craftsman of nonfiction prose in more than twenty books and New Yorker articles beyond count, turned his attention to the sea in Looking for a Ship (1990). The subject is actually multiple: the decline of the U.S. Merchant Marine, a young mate’s frustrating…
Read MoreMcNally, Terrence
by David R. Pellegrini (1999) McNALLY, TERRENCE (1938-2020). Terrence McNally’s seriocomic dramas have won him acclaim as one of the most prolific playwrights of the 1990s, one particularly interested in the representation of gay men. Along with other dramatists who portray the healing and redemptive powers of nature for the urban character, McNally uses a…
Read MoreMcKenna, Richard
by Robert Shenk (2000) McKENNA, RICHARD [MILTON] (1913-1964). Richard McKenna was a career naval enlisted man whose 1962 novel The Sand Pebbles is a classic of naval fiction. McKenna’s childhood in Mountain Home, Idaho, was enriched by his great habit of reading, but when he entered the navy at age eighteen, he found it difficult to…
Read MoreMcCormick, Jay W.
by Robert Beasecker (2000) McCORMICK, JAY W. (1919- ). Jay W. McCormick was born and grew up in the small Lake Huron port town of Harbor Beach, Michigan. His father was a Great Lakes ship captain, and the younger McCormick spent considerable time sailing the Lakes with him. After he graduated from the University of Michigan…
Read MoreMayo, William S.
by Christina L. Wolak (2000) MAYO, WILLIAM S[TARBUCK] (1811-1895). Born in Ogdensburg, New York, William S. Mayo was a successful physician and author of popular adventure fiction. His mother’s family had been in the whaling industry for generations, and his father served in the merchant marine and owned a boatbuilding business. Family lore and his father’s…
Read MoreMaury, Matthew Fontaine
by R. D. Madison (2000) MAURY, MATTHEW FONTAINE (1806-1873). The 1855 publication of Matthew Fontaine Maury’s Physical Geography of the Sea inaugurated the distinct discipline of oceanography, but earlier essays under the pseudonym “Harry Bluff” helped shape reform of the antebellum U.S. Navy. Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Maury pursued a career as an officer in the…
Read MoreMatthiessen, Peter
by Eric G. Waggoner (2000) MATTHIESSEN, PETER (1927-2014). New York-born Peter Matthiessen has borne the double titles of author and naturalist since the beginning of his professional writing career. Son of an architect father who was also a trustee of the National Audubon Society, Matthiessen has continually demonstrated a deep respect for, and knowledge of, the…
Read MoreMason, F. Van Wyck
by Boyd Childress (2000) MASON, F[RANCIS]. VAN WYCK (1901-1978). World War I and II veteran, importer, and ultimately writer, F. Van Wyck Mason was born in Boston on 11 November 1901. He was awarded a B.S. from Harvard University in 1924 after serving briefly with the U.S. Army in France during 1918-1919. After leaving Harvard, Mason…
Read MoreMason, Arthur
by Bert Bender (2000) MASON, ARTHUR (1876-1955). Born in Ireland, Mason went to sea at age seventeen to embark on a career that would last twenty-four years. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1899. For much of his career he was engaged in the lumber trade out of various ports from San…
Read MoreMartin, William
by Susan Raidy Klein MARTIN, WILLIAM (1950- ). History and the sea are the subjects of the fiction of William Martin, contemporary novelist and screenwriter. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and earning a B.A. from Harvard University (1972) and an M.F.A. from the University of Southern California (1976), Martin has spent much of his life on…
Read MoreMartingale, Hawser (John Sherburne Sleeper)
Martel, Yann
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Read MoreMarshall, Paule
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Read MoreMarshall, Logan
Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters (1912)
Read MoreMacLeish, Archibald
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) MACLEISH, ARCHIBALD (1892-1982). Poet Archibald MacLeish is best known as a winner of three Pulitzer Prizes and as the librarian of Congress from 1939 to 1944. While a student at Yale University, MacLeish began a long friendship with Britain’s sea-poet John Masefield. Following service in the army during World War I,…
Read MoreMackenzie, Alexander Slidell
by Hugh Egan (2000) MACKENZIE, ALEXANDER SLIDELL (1803-1848). Career naval officer, author, and naval historian, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie gained notoriety for his part in quelling the “mutiny” aboard the Somers in December 1842. Mackenzie, who legally changed his last name from Slidell, entered the navy as a midshipman at age twelve, served under the legendary…
Read MoreMack, William P.
by C. Herbert Gilliland (2000) MACK, WILLIAM P[ADEN]. (1915-2003). Novelist William P. Mack was born 6 August 1915, in Hillsboro, Illinois. His first professional writing experience was in 1931 as an interim reporter on the San Francisco Daily News, where his brother-in-law was city editor. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1937. When, early…
Read MoreMacHarg, William
by Mary DeJong Obuchowski (2000) MACHARG, WILLIAM [BRIGGS] (1872-1951). Born in Chicago, William MacHarg was a journalist, editor, and publisher of The American Mercury, as well as a fiction writer. He collaborated with Edwin Balmer (1883-1959) on mystery, romance, and adventure stories, some of which are set in the Chicago and Great Lakes area. Their best-known…
Read MoreMacDonald, John D.
by Philip J. Egan (2000) MacDONALD, JOHN D[ANN]. (1916-1986). Best known for his creation of tough-guy detective Travis McGee, suspense novelist John D. MacDonald lived for many years in South Florida and set much of his work there. In his novels the sea functions both as a paradisiacal retreat from the commercialized Florida landscape and as…
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