Two Years Before the Mast

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.


Afflicted with poor vision following a bout with the measles, Harvard undergraduate Richard Henry Dana left school in 1834 to ship out as a common sailor aboard the brig Pilgrim for a two-year voyage around Cape Horn to California. He kept a diary during the voyage and upon his return wrote the classic Two Years Before the Mast, which was published in 1840 and quickly became a best seller. The term “before the mast” refers to the quarters of common sailors, located in the front of the ship. His initial motive in writing the memoir was to expose the poor treatment of common sailors at sea. The ship was bound with U.S. goods to trade with the missions and ports for cow hides in California, a Mexican colony. The book recounts stays along the coast from San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco, the heavy work involved in transporting the hides, and the ways of the Native Americans and Mexican Californios. Dana learns Spanish and becomes interpreter for the ship. The book is famous for his account of the mid-winter return voyage around Cape Horn that took weeks as they battled storms, wind, cold and icebergs, cited by Herman Melville as the best description ever written of the perils of Cape Horn.  The book was made into a popular film starring Alan Ladd in 1946.

Product Details

Read by: BethAnne (1-47) TriciaG (48-49)
Length: 17 hours 4 minutes
Type: Solo reading
Media: MP3 CD
Package: Paper sleeve
Item No.: CD-1159
List Price: $5.99

Features

Cover Artwork

Disc contains 300 dpi image files for printing cover artwork.
CD label art includes both square JPG and round PNG formats.
CD jewel case art includes cover, inner insert, and J-card.
DVD case art includes wrapper for Amaray box and inner insert.

Credits

Production

Book Coordinator: BethAnne
Meta Coordinator: Jc Guan
Proof Listener: Rapunzelina

Artwork
Cover: Recreation of the cover of the 1911 Houghton Mifflin edition.
Inset: Illustration of Hide Droughing in 1830s Mexican Alta California, part of the California Hide Trade, from the 1911 edition.
Inset: Portrait drawing of Richard Henry Dana, Jr. by Jaques Reich. Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, v. 2, 1900, p. 71.

The Recordings

About MP3 Audio

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The Recordings

These recordings were made using the author’s original published work, which is in the public domain. The readings were recorded by members of Librivox.org, which has generously made the recordings available to the public domain. While Librivox condones the sale and distribution of these recordings, it is not associated with the management or operations of MP3 Audiobook Classics. The audio files have been lightly edited and have been engineered using professional audio tools for maximum sonic quality. We spend considerable time and effort to ensure the recordings are free of noise, equalized for maximum listener pleasure, and that tracks are leveled and normalized to provide a consistent listening experience.

Table of Contents

Track Section  Length
1 00 Preface  5:05
2 01 Departure  5:48
3 02 First Impressions  16:18
4 03 Ship's Duties  14:12
5 04 Sundays At Sea  18:36
6 05 Cape Horn  23:33
7 06 Loss of a Man  12:16
8 07 Juan Fernandez  16:52
9 08 Daily Life  13:57
10 09 Santa Barbra  20:19
11 10 A South Easter  11:35
12 11 Passage Up the Coast  13:09
13 12 Monterey  7:33
14 13 Trading at Monterey  26:54
15 14 Discontent  31:52
16 15 Flogging pt 1  19:53
17 16 Flogging pt 2  18:24
18 17 Liberty Day on Shore  20:59
19 18 San Diego  19:33
20 19 Easter Sunday pt 1  19:23
21 20 Easter Sunday pt 2  17:24
22 21 Sandwich-Islanders pt 1  20:01
23 22 Sandwich-Islanders pt 2  19:48
24 23 New Comers  23:02
25 24 California and its Inhabitants  15:38
26 25 The Alert  16:21
27 26 New Ship and Shipmates pt 1  25:48
28 27 New Ship and Shipmates pt 2  23:44
29 28 San Diego Again  19:19
30 29 Rumours of War pt 1  23:04
31 30 Rumours of War pt 2  21:54
32 31 San Francisco  22:22
33 32 A Fandango  28:04
34 33 News From Home  35:00
35 34 Loading for Home pt 1  24:42
36 35 Loading for Home pt 2  34:25
37 36 Homeward Bound  32:19
38 37 Bad Prospects pt 1  29:14
39 38 Bad Prospects pt 2  30:49
40 39 Doubling Cape Horn  28:58
41 40 Northward Ho!  28:09
42 41 Nearing Home  20:50
43 42 More Stirring Incidents  24:41
44 43 Hurrah for Yankee Land!  24:23
45 44 Original Concluding Chapter pt 1  23:41
46 45 Original Concluding Chapter pt 2  25:15
47 46 Epilogue pt 1  30:37
48 47 Epilogue pt 2  27:44
49 48 Epilogue pt 3  24:17

 

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