Posts Tagged ‘Atlantic Ocean’
James, Henry
by Greg W. Zacharias (2000) JAMES, HENRY (1843-1916). Henry James made nineteen Atlantic crossings and lived for much of his life in seacoast cities and villages. In his longer fiction, scenes near the English Channel in What Maisie Knew (1897) and in Venice in The Aspern Papers (1888) and The Wings of the Dove (1902, film…
Read MoreIrving, Washington
by James J. Schramer (2000) IRVING, WASHINGTON (1783-1859). The first American to succeed as a professional author, Washington Irving was born in New York City in the last year of the American Revolution. Although he is best known today as the author of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819-1820), short tales that…
Read MoreHarte, Bret
by Nathaniel T. Mott HARTE, [FRANCIS] BRET[T] (1836-1902). Born in Albany, New York, Bret Harte rose to literary prominence as editor of the Overland Monthly (first pub. 1868), a San Francisco-based magazine of western lore. In this forum Harte produced his best sketches, stories, and poems, including “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (August 1868), “The…
Read MoreGreen, Paul
by David R. Pellegrini (2000) GREEN, PAUL [ELIOT] (1894-1981). A prolific playwright and poet whose literary career spanned several decades and genres, Paul Green is remembered chiefly for his dramatizations of southern folklore and customs and the plight of the African American in particular, in such plays as In Abraham’s Bosom (first perf. 1927; pub.…
Read MoreEquiano, Olaudah
by Arnold Schmidt (2000, rev. 2021) EQUIANO, OLAUDAH (1745-1797). By the time he died at the end of the eighteenth century, mariner, author, and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano had likely become the wealthiest and most famous Black man in the Atlantic world. A widely travelled ex-slave who had sailed extensively on both naval and merchant ships,…
Read MoreCuffe, Paul
by Brad S. Born (2000) CUFFE, PAUL (1759-1817). Seaman, captain, shipowner, businessman, author, and African colonizer, Paul Cuffe was born 17 January 1759, on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, the seventh child of his African-born father and Ruth Slocum, a Wampanoag Indian. Cuffe went to the sea in the 1770s as an ordinary seaman, first aboard a…
Read MoreClampitt, Amy
by Richard Dey (2014) AMY CLAMPITT (1920–1994). Born and raised on a small farm in Iowa, this poet, who was best known for her highly cultured work, wrote a few extraordinary sea poems. Here are lines from the first: …
Read MoreBuckley, William F., Jr.
by Robert C. Foulke (2000) BUCKLEY, WILLIAM F[RANK]., Jr. (1925-2008). William F. Buckley Jr., prolific journalist, author, and editor of National Review, is also a passionate sailor. Those two worlds join in a trilogy of narratives about monthlong ocean cruises he has taken in yachts he either owned or chartered: Airborne: A Sentimental Journey (1970), Atlantic High: A…
Read MoreBriggs, Charles Frederick
by Gail H. Coffler (2000) BRIGGS, CHARLES FREDERICK (1804-1877). Born a Nantucket Yankee (his mother was a Coffin), Charles Frederick Briggs was a real sailor before he became a professional writer. Though he would later turn to the magazines to earn a living, Briggs began his career as a sea novelist. The Adventures of Harry Franco,…
Read MoreBridge, Horatio
by John B. Hattendorf (2000) BRIDGE, HORATIO (1806-1893). A naval officer, Horatio Bridge is most famous for his close friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne, for whom he found a publisher for Twice-told Tales (1837) and to whom Hawthorne dedicated The Snow Image (1851). Born in Augusta, Maine, Bridge graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825 with Hawthorne. Upon graduation, Bridge attended…
Read MoreBlatchford, John
by Daniel E. Williams (2000) BLATCHFORD, JOHN (1762-1794). John Blatchford’s account of his voyages is one of the more extraordinary sea narratives from the American Revolution. First published in 1788 and soon republished in at least half a dozen other editions, Blatchford’s Narrative of Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of John Blatchford relates his experiences from 1777,…
Read MoreBinns, Archie
by Matthew Evertson (2000) BINNS, ARCHIE [FRED] (1899-1971). Archie Binns, novelist and historian of the northwestern United States, is best known for his critically acclaimed novel Lightship (1934). Based partly on Binns’ own experiences at age eighteen aboard the Umatilla Reef Lightship off Cape Flattery, Washington, the story brings together the diverse lives of nine sailors as they struggle…
Read MoreBarth, John
by Julius Rowan Raper (2000) BARTH, JOHN [SUMMONS] (1930- ). There is a great deal of water in the fiction of John Barth, as one would expect of a writer who was born in Cambridge on the eastern shore of Maryland, was educated at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and lived and taught on the…
Read MoreAverill, 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…
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 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…
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