What’s New?
- Biographies: Jamaica Kincaid, Marilyn Nelson, Clifford Ashley, Sylvia Earle, and Phillis Wheatley
- Audio: Harriet Beecher Stowe's The Pearl of Orr’s Island
- Video: Derek Walcott reads "Sea Grapes"
- Featured Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Tag Archives: audio
Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens)
by John Samson (2000) [CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE], “MARK TWAIN” (1835- 1910). Though more widely known for his writing on the Mississippi River, Samuel Clemens traveled extensively at sea, experiences that find their way into a number of the writings he Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Antarctic, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Fiction, First-person narrative, Indian Ocean, Pacific Islands, Passenger Travel
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Poe, Edgar Allan
by Joan Tyler Mead (2000) POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809-1849). Edgar Allan Poe, best known for his tales of Gothic horror, was a writer of poetry, short and long fiction, an unfinished drama, criticism, literary theory, essays, and a “cosmological prose poem.” Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Antarctic, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Fiction, Merchant Marine, Passenger Travel, Poetry, Science Fiction, Short Story, Whaling/Sealing
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Yang, Jeffrey
by Jaehyun Jeong (2015) YANG, JEFFREY (1974-) Jeffrey Yang is an American poet, translator, and editor best known for his books of poetry An Aquarium (2008) and Vanishing-Line (2011). Born in Escondido, California, Yang attended the University of California San Diego. With an initial interest Continue reading text links
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Tagged 21st Century, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Exploration, Middle Passage and Enslavement, Pacific Ocean, Poetry, Race/Ethnicity and the Sea, Science/Nature, video
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Wilson, August
by Sarah Dohan (2016) WILSON, AUGUST (1945-2005). August Wilson, a prominent American playwright, was born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 27, 1945 to Frederick Kittel, a German baker, and Daisy Wilson Kittel, an African American cleaning woman. Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Middle Passage and Enslavement, Plays, Race/Ethnicity and the Sea, video
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Thoreau, Henry David
by Capper Nichols (2000) THOREAU, HENRY DAVID (1817-1862). Henry David Thoreau is most often associated with his birthplace and home, Concord, Massachusetts, and the woods, ponds, and streams in the vicinity of the town. But he frequently made excursions to other Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Great Lakes, Science/Nature
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Stowe, Harriet Beecher
by Margherita M. Desy (2000) STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER (1811-1896). Harriet Beecher Stowe is internationally famous for her antislavery best-seller Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). In the summer of 1852, still living in Brunswick, Maine, where she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe began Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Coastal Life, Fiction, Women Protagonists
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Slocum, Joshua
by Haskell Springer (2000; rev. 2021) SLOCUM, JOSHUA (1844-1908?). Joshua Slocum, the first singlehanded circumnavigator and author of the classic Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), was born in Nova Scotia. At about sixteen he left home to work as a Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, 20th Century, Atlantic Ocean, audio, First-person narrative, Fishing, Merchant Marine, Navy/Coast Guard, Pacific Ocean, Recreation, video
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Oliver, Mary
by Ted Olson (2000, rev. ed. 2019) OLIVER, MARY (1935-2019). A popular and highly acclaimed American poet, recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mary Oliver composed numerous lyric poems set on coastal Cape Cod. Born in Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, audio, Coastal Life, Poetry, Science/Nature, video
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O’Neill, Eugene
by Margaret Loftus Ranald (2000) O’NEILL, EUGENE [GLADSTONE] (1888-1953). Eugene O’Neill, America’s preeminent playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize (1936) and four Pulitzer Prizes (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957), was born in the Barrett Hotel, New York City, son of the actor Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, audio, Class/Labor and the Sea, Merchant Marine, Plays, War, Whaling/Sealing, Women Protagonists
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Kolbert, Elizabeth
by Rachel Earnhardt (2016) KOLBERT, ELIZABETH (1961-) Born in New York City, Elizabeth Kolbert is a preeminent literary journalist and author. After graduating from Yale University with a degree in literature in 1983, Kolbert studied at the Universität Hamburg in Germany on Continue reading text links
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Tagged 21st Century, audio, Journalism, Nonfiction, Science/Nature
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Nelson, Marilyn
by Kelly Bushnell and Christian Loriel Lucas (2022) NELSON (WANIEK), MARILYN (1946—). Poet and translator Marilyn Nelson (Waniek) was born in Cleveland in 1946. She received her BA from the University of California, Davis, her MA from the University of Continue reading text links
Melville, 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 Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, Antarctic, audio, Class/Labor and the Sea, Fiction, Merchant Marine, Navy/Coast Guard, Pacific Islands, Pacific Ocean, Race/Ethnicity and the Sea, video, Whaling/Sealing
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McNally, 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 Continue reading text links
Lovecraft, 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 Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, audio, Fiction, Science Fiction
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Hughes, Langston
by Christopher C. De Santis (2000) HUGHES, [JAMES MERCER] LANGSTON (1902-1967). Langston Hughes, the prolific African American writer whose work in multiple genres endeared him early in his career to the black American community and later to a broad, international readership, Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, audio, First-person narrative, Poetry, Short Story
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Equiano, 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 Continue reading text links
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Tagged 18th Century, Arctic, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Caribbean, First-person narrative, Gulf of Mexico, Merchant Marine, Middle Passage and Enslavement, Navy/Coast Guard, Race/Ethnicity and the Sea, video, War
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Dana, 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 Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, audio, First-person narrative, Passenger Travel, Science/Nature, video
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Clampitt, 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: Continue reading text links
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Tagged 20th Century, Atlantic Ocean, audio, Coastal Life, Passenger Travel, Poetry
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Chopin, Kate
by Elizabeth Schultz (2000)CHOPIN, KATE [O’FLAHERTY] (1850-1904). Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Kate Chopin had no experience of the sea until her three-month European honeymoon in 1870. On her return to the United States, she moved with her husband to Continue reading text links
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Tagged 19th Century, audio, Coastal Life, Fiction, Gender/Sexuality and the Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Recreation, Women Protagonists
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Carson, Rachel
by Betsy S. Hilbert (2000) CARSON, RACHEL [LOUISE] (1907-1964). Though Rachel Carson’s fame as an environmental writer rests on the warnings about pesticide pollution in her last book, Silent Spring (1962), her previous three books on the sea established her reputation. Under the Continue reading text links