Posts Tagged ‘Nonfiction’
Ballou, Maturin Murray (“Lieut. Murray,” “Frank Forester”)
by Mary Malloy (2000) [BALLOU, MATURIN MURRAY], “LIEUT. MURRAY,” “FRANK FORESTER” (1820-1895). An influential publisher of American periodicals, Maturin Murray Ballou was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He traveled extensively and entered the literary world by writing descriptive letters of his adventures for publication in local newspapers. The editor and/or publisher of ten periodicals, including the Boston…
Read MoreMurphy, 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 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 MorePeterson, Charles Jacob (“J. Thornton Randolph” or “Harry Danforth”)
by Robert L. Gale (2000) [PETERSON, CHARLES JACOB], “HARRY DANFORTH,” “J. THORNTON RANDOLPH” (1819-1887). Charles Jacob Peterson was an editor, publisher, and historian, born in Philadelphia, where he worked all his life. Once he acquired an ample fortune, he and his wife purchased a mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, enjoyed its summer beach and coastal…
Read MorePerry, Commodore Matthew
by Nathaniel T. Mott (2000) PERRY, COMMODORE MATTHEW [CALBRAITH] (1794-1858). Commodore Matthew Perry served a long and distinguished career in the U.S. Navy, which began in January 1809, when he was commissioned as a midshipman. Perry is best known for commanding an 1853 expedition of four vessels, including the steam frigates Mississippi (built 1841) and Susquehanna…
Read MoreSafina, Carl
by Rachel Earnhardt (2017) SAFINA, CARL (1955-). Carl Safina is a biologist, author, activist, and educator. Born on May 23, 1955, in Brooklyn, NY, Safina spent his childhood fishing, breeding pigeons, and playing music. In high school, he participated in a bird-banding survey on Fire Island, a barrier island off Long Island, an experience he…
Read MoreWarner, William W.
by Brian Anderson (2000) WARNER, WILLIAM W[HITESIDES]. (1920-2008). Naturalist-author William W. Warner was born in New York City. From 1944 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, and was awarded a Navy Commendation Medal. Warner is primarily known for his nonfiction work Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen,…
Read MoreVollmann, William T.
by Dana L. Peterson (2000) VOLLMANN, WILLIAM T[ANNER]. (1959- ). William T. Vollmann’s very ambitious project is a seven-novel series entitled Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes, which interweaves history, myth and legend, imagination, illustrations, and personal travel experience to chronicle the “symbolic history” of North American colonization. The three published volumes of…
Read MoreVidal, Gore
by Donald Yannella (2000) VIDAL, GORE [EUGENE LUTHER] (1925-2012). Gore Vidal was born in West Point, New York, attended Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and served in the army during World War II. A novelist, playwright, and essayist, he occasionally employs maritime settings in his work. In Empire (1987), for example, the sea is…
Read MoreTheroux, Paul
by Boyd Childress (2000) THEROUX, PAUL [EDWARD] (1941- ). Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts, and received his B.A. from the University of Massachusetts in 1963. Having taught in Malawi, Uganda, and Singapore, he is a prolific novelist and travel writer who divides his time between wintering in England and summering on Cape Cod, a…
Read MoreSteinbeck, John
by Susan F. Beegel (2000) STEINBECK, JOHN [ERNST] (1902-1968). John Steinbeck, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in literature, was born in Salinas, California. As a child, he divided his time between his family’s home in the rich agricultural land of the Salinas valley and their summer cottage in Pacific Grove, where he spent many happy…
Read MoreSobel, Dava
by Marija Miklavčič (2020) SOBEL, DAVA (1947 – ). Dava Sobel grew up in the Bronx, NY, and received her college degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton. A journalist and science writer, Sobel has written six books and co-authored a half-dozen more, mostly centered around astronomy and the history of…
Read MoreSnow, Edward Rowe
by Mary Malloy (2000) SNOW, EDWARD ROWE (1902-1982). A prolific producer of maritime history and lore for popular consumption, Edward Rowe Snow was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University and earned a master’s degree in history from Boston University. Among his ninety-seven books are Great Storms and Famous Shipwrecks of the New…
Read MoreSmith, John
by R. D. Madison (2000) SMITH, JOHN (1580-1631). Although born in Lincolnshire, England, Captain John Smith initiated many traditions in American literature, among them geography, autobiography, and history. A True Relation (1608), his earliest account of his experiences in the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland and Virginia, is the first book in English written entirely in…
Read MoreSearls, Hank
by C. Herbert Gilliland (2000) SEARLS, HENRY HUNT “HANK,” JR. (1922-2017). Novelist and author of nonfiction and short fiction, Hank Searls was born in San Francisco 10 August 1922. Graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1944 with the wartime-accelerated class of 1945, he remained an active-duty naval officer until 1954. He served in the…
Read MoreSantayana, George
by Bernard F. Engel (2000) SANTAYANA, GEORGE [JORGE AUGUSTIN NICOLAS RUIZ DE] (1863-1962). The Spanish-born American idealist-philosopher George Santayana drew on his frequent Atlantic crossings in forming concepts of the world and himself. He also used shipboard experience when developing abstract argument and inventing the analogies, metaphors, and imagery that make his writing accessible to the…
Read MoreSamuels, Samuel
by Mary K. Bercaw Edwards (2000) SAMUELS, SAMUEL (1823-1908). Samuel Samuels was the most famous of the packet-ship masters, eventually commanding the renowned Dreadnought (1853). Packets sailed on a set schedule, regardless of whether or not their cargo holds were full. Almost all that is known of Samuels comes from his autobiography, From the Forecastle…
Read MoreRudloe, Jack
by Dennis Berthold (2000) RUDLOE, JACK [J.] (1943- ). Born in New York, Jack Rudloe moved to Florida as a boy and began his self-education as a marine biologist. In 1964 he founded the Gulf Coast Specimen Company of Panacea, Florida, which collects marine specimens for laboratories around the world. A few years later he began…
Read MoreRiesenberg, Felix
by Bert Bender (2000) RIESENBERG, FELIX (1879-1939). Felix Riesenberg was one of the most important figures in American literature of the sea during the 1920s and 1930s; his literary contributions were preceded by many years of first-hand sea experience during the final transitional years from sail to steam. Following the example of his father, a German…
Read MoreRicketts, Edward F.
by Susan F. Beegel (2000) RICKETTS, EDWARD F[LANDERS]. (1897-1948). Edward F. Ricketts, marine biologist and ecologist, was John Steinbeck’s collaborator on Sea of Cortez (1941) and the model for “Doc,” protagonist of Steinbeck’s Monterey novels Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954), and for “Friend Ed,” one of four principal characters in Steinbeck’s play-novelette Burning…
Read MoreRatigan, William O.
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) RATIGAN, WILLIAM 0. (1910-1984). Born to a Great Lakes steamboat engineer in Detroit and later adopted by an Ottawa tribe chief, William Ratigan called Michigan his home. This Great Lakes historian’s writings celebrate ordinary Americans who made big names for themselves. His books are seasoned with Lakes poetry, often his…
Read MoreKolbert, 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 a Fulbright scholarship. Before joining The New Yorker as a staff writer in 1999, she…
Read MoreNelson, James L.
by John F. Hussey (2000, revised 2014, by Eleanore MacLean) NELSON, JAMES L. (1962- ). Born in Lewiston, Maine, James L. Nelson, a former professional square-rig sailor, traces his love of the sea to his earliest memories when he chose boats and model ships for boyhood toys. In college Nelson joined the sailing club at…
Read MoreMorrell, 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 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 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 MoreSleeper, John Sherburne (“Hawser Martingale”)
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) [SLEEPER, JOHN SHERBURNE], “HAWSER MARTINGALE” (1794-1878). An author and journalist from New England, John Sherburne Sleeper first went to sea in 1809 as a cabin boy and assumed his first command in 1821. By 1825 he was captain of an East Indiaman, and he spent much of his career in merchant…
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, 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 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 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 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 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…
Read MoreKincaid, Jamaica
by Olivia Raymond (2022) KINCAID, JAMAICA (1949 – ). Jamaica Kincaid is an award-winning author and essayist of Caribbean descent. Born Elaine Potter Richardson in St. John’s on the island of Antigua, she moved to the United States in 1965 at the age of sixteen to work as an au pair, later attending Franconia College. In…
Read MoreKent, Rockwell
by Doug Capra (2000) KENT, ROCKWELL (1882-1971). Rockwell Kent, painter, writer, adventurer, graphic artist, and political activist, was born in Tarrytown Heights, New Jersey. He trained as an architect at Columbia University and studied painting under William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, Abbott Thayer, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. In 1905 Henri introduced the young socialist to the…
Read MoreJones, John Paul
by Kay Seymour House (2000) JONES, JOHN PAUL (1747-1792). Born in Scotland, John Paul went to sea as an apprentice at age twelve. After inheriting property in Virginia, he added “Jones” to his name and became a lieutenant in the Continental navy in 1775. His was the first vessel to fly the Continental flag. After reporting…
Read MoreJohnson, Irving
by Mary K. Bercaw Edwards (2000) JOHNSON, IRVING [McCLURE] (1905-1991). Irving Johnson grew up on a farm in the Connecticut River valley of Massachusetts. Inspired by Jack London’s novels, he had an unswerving desire to go to sea and work with his hands. Johnson spent summers working aboard yachts along the New England coast. In 1929…
Read MoreJohnson, Electa [Exy] Search
by Eleanore MacLean (2014) JOHNSON, ELECTA [EXY] SEARCH (1909-2004). Exy Johnson was born in Rochester, New York, in 1909. She attended Smith College, graduating after three years in 1929, and went on to the University of California, Berkeley, for a year of study in French. In 1932 Exy sailed from Le Havre, France, to Boston…
Read MoreJewitt, John Rodgers
by Mary Malloy (2000) JEWITT, JOHN RODGERS (1783-1821). An Englishman who served aboard the American merchant vessel Boston, John Jewitt became famous as a “captive” of the Indians of Nootka Sound, off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when he survived the destruction of his ship and massacre of its crew in 1803. Born in…
Read MoreJennings Jr., John Edward (“Bates Baldwin”)
by Debra Glabeau (2000) [JENNINGS, JOHN EDWARD, JR], “BATES BALDWIN” (1906-1973). John Edward Jennings Jr., historical novelist, was born in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a surgeon, he began his seafaring in 1925 as a foremast hand aboard a tramp steamer traveling in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Jennings attended the Colorado…
Read MoreJames, 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 MoreIngraham, Joseph Holt
by Christina L. Wolak (2000) INGRAHAM, JOSEPH HOLT (1809-1860). Born in Portland, Maine, Joseph Holt Ingraham was a teacher, minister, and popular writer who produced more than 100 novels, 25 in 1845 alone at the peak of his career. Until the late 1840s Ingraham wrote popular historical romances, many about pirates and sea adventures. After…
Read MoreHough, Henry Beetle
by Wesley T. Mott (2000) HOUGH, HENRY BEETLE (1896-1985). Editor of the Vineyard Gazette on the island of Martha’s Vineyard from 1920 almost until his death, Henry Beetle Hough was the grandson of a sea captain. He was born and raised in the whaling city of New Bedford, where his newspaper-editor father serialized Moby-Dick (1851) in…
Read MoreHemingway, Ernest Miller
by Bickford Sylvester (2000) HEMINGWAY, ERNEST MILLER (1899-1961). Ernest Hemingway, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (1952) and the Nobel Prize in literature (1954), grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. Except when rough water forced them to go by train, he and his family crossed Lake Michigan every summer until 1917. In his teens,…
Read MoreHart, Joseph C.
by Nathaniel Philbrick HART, JOSEPH C. (1798-1855). A New Yorker whose mother’s family came from Nantucket Island, Joseph C. Hart is known today as the author of Miriam Coffin, or The Whale-Fishermen (1834), a novel that was an important source for Moby-Dick (1851). An attorney, school principal, and author of several widely used geography textbooks,…
Read MoreHale, Edward Everett
by Norman E. Stafford HALE, EDWARD EVERETT (1822-1909). Born in Boston, Edward Everett Hale belonged to an old New England family. His great-uncle, Captain Nathan Hale, uttered the memorable cry, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” just before the British hanged him as a spy during the…
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