Two Years Before the Mast - Large Print Author:Richard Henry Dana On August 14, 1834, the brig Pilgrim put to sea from Boston to California. It was to be a routine five-month sail -- for the most of the crew. Rounding Cape Horn, the small vessel would be thrashed by gales and churned like a top in a waterfall. Men would be flogged. One would be swept overboard, and a cruel captain would sell his clothing... — B... more »ut Richard Henry Dana, though he sailed as one, was no ordinary seaman. He was a 19-year-old Harvard student, a landlubber -- and what he recorded of this voyage and its return became a true adventure classic unsurpassed in American Literature. Two Years Before the Mast (1840) is Dana's own story -- that of a seasick green hand who swore he'd prove himself a first-rate sailor or die trying. But it is also the work of a born writer, a youth able to portray his shipmates and the voyage's action-packed incidents with scrupulous objectivity. Dana's exciting stay in California, where he cured hides and made friends with Sandwich Islanders, and his return to Boston with a new sense of liberation are also detailed with the vividness that has sustained the popularity of this masterpiece to this day.« less