An Anthology of Maritime Reading Experiences
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An Anthology of Maritime Reading Experiences A book that has been read at sea has a near claim on our friendship, and is a thing one is loath to part with, or change, even for a better book. But the well-tried friend of many voyages is, oh, so hard to part with at sea. A resting-place in the solemn sea of sameness—in the trackless ocean, marked only by imaginary lines and circles—is a cheerless spot to look to; yet, how many have treasures there! (Voyage of the Liberdade, by Joshua Slocum. Boston, Robinson & Stephenson, 1890. p. 30) Allen, Everett S. Children of the Light: The Rise and Fall of New Bedford Whaling and the Death of the Arctic Fleet. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. A somewhat elegiac tale of the decline of whaling and New Bedford, contrasted with descriptions of the life of the Inuit, before and after the coming of the whalers to the Beaufort Sea area. Main focus at end is on the disastrous season at Pt. Barrow of the whaling fleet which abandoned over 25 ships, but managed to rescue over 1200 whalemen. p. 89: When a library was donated to New Bedford by the Friends Society in 1813, a committee of members went over the list of books and discarded many, such as several foremost English poets and Shakespeare's works, as unfit for young people to read. This opposition to certain aspects of culture and the arts, implemented by the influential Quaker leadership, was dominant in the New Bedford area for many years. p. 114 discusses acquisitions in 1871 for that library from the Sylvia Howland fund, and promotion of a book on the evils of Romanism as it is—"It shows its insidious workings which strongly tend to bring this country under full Romish control." Such attitudes could easily have influenced what reading would be available aboard Quaker whalers. p. 164-5: In almost every way, the whaling masters repudiated the landsman's concept (especially that of the journalist and novelist of their times) of what they were. They were scornful of what these people had 1 to say about them and their scorn included Herman Melville, whom they knew less as a writer than as a ship-jumper. They did not understand at all what he had written in Moby Dick, or why; they had a vague notion that he was a homosexual, and they believed he had purposely drawn an unbecoming, perhaps even indecent caricature of what they were and did. p. 181: Above the wooden belfry of the Seamen's Bethel at Honolulu flew the flag of salvation for the lonely sailor far from home, to whom the Reverend John Diell and his wife distributed Bibles and spelling tracts, the latter because many men of the Yankee fleet were illiterate. Below the belfry, in the crooked streets of the haole district (four hotels and nine grogshops), the word was "There is no God this side of Cape Horn." Bell, Bill. “Bound for Australia: Shipboard Reading in the Nineteenth Century.” In Journeys trough the Market: Travel, Travellers and the Book Trade. Edited by Robin Myers and Michael Harris. Folkstone, Kent, UK; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1999, p. 119-40. [St Paul’s Bibliographies] A fascinating study of books and reading aboard emigrant ship travelling from Britain to Australia when all sorts of passengers, from gentlemen to convicts, experienced “the longest period of enforced leisure that they would ever again enjoy. p. 126: While readers might have preferred chapbooks to religious pamphlets, they would nevertheless accept narrative tracts ‘if nothing better was to be had’. Such reluctant acts of reading would have been even more likely at sea, where a combination of factors—boredom, the relative scarcity of printed matter, and the perceived danger of the journey—combined to make the use of even the most overtly moralistic text almost irresistible. Where an alternative was available, however, the emigrant would more often than not reject prescribed reading. The majority of males on board the ‘Prestonjee Bomanjee’ in 1854 were, according to its schoolmaster, ‘men who would sit for hours reading a book’ but were nevertheless entirely ‘indisposed to attend school’. With 2 an unusually catholic library at their disposal, the most popular categories appear to have been ‘History, Biography, Travels, Tales, and above all books treating of the Colonies. The exclusively religious books the people will not read; they are therefore useless for the purpose intended.’…. For all the heavy-handed attempts to proselytize the eminent poor, private diaries and correspondence offer many such examples of readerly resistance, providing evidence that common readers were; in fact far more sophisticated in their use of print than is sometimes thought, real readers resembling; anything but the subjects interpellated [sic] by the texts themselves. p. 129: The diary of one convict provides a fairly detailed account of life between the decks of the ‘Hougomoont” as it made its way from London to Western Australia in 1867. Entertainments included a debating society, recitations from Shakespeare, nightly theatricals, and the publication of a weekly journal containing original poetry, critical articles, and a lively correspondence column. It would be difficult to imagine a company of more erudite passengers than those responsible for the production of The Voice of Our Exiles, a weekly newspaper published in manuscript on board the ‘Clara’…. p. 135, gives a long list of books encountered by an unidentified passenger on the voyage. p. 136: While it has been argued that reading is by nature a distinctly anti-social activity, there is evidence to suggest that the use of books at sea could serve important social functions, even in cases reinforcing a sense of common identity. One of the most popular shipboard entertainments in the nineteenth century was reading aloud. p. 138, conclusion: The thousands of books, tracks, letters, and newspapers that made their way to the colonies in the nineteenth century provided vital connections with familiar social values, serving for many to organize an otherwise unpredictable environment into recognizable patters under strange skies. By the end of the century reading had become for thousands of seaborne passengers a practical necessity, the profundity of three months in cultural isolation enngendering for many 3 the most intense relationship that they would ever have with the printed word. Bligh, William. A Voyage to the South Sea, Undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for the Purpose of Conveying the Bread-Fruit Tree to the West Indies, in His Majesty’s Ship The Bounty, Commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh…. London: Printed for George Nicol, 1792. p. 156, in the course of the mutiny: The boatswain and seamen, who were to go in the boat, were allowed to collect twine, canvas, lines, sails, cordage, an eight and twenty gallon cask of water, and Mr. Samuel got 150 lbs. of bread, with a small quantity of rum and wine, also a quadrant and compass; but he was forbidden, on pain of death, to touch either map, ephemeris, book of astronomical observations, sextant, time- keeper, or any of my surveys or drawings. p. 240, on the death of David Nelson on July 20, 1789: After reading our burial-service, the body was interred behind the chapel, in the burying- ground appropriated to the Europeans of the town. I was sorry I could get no tombstone to place over his remains. Brewster, Mary. “’She Was a Sister Sailor’: The Whaling Journals of Mary Brewster, 1845-1851. Edited by Joan Druett. Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1992. This is apparently the first known journal of a whaleman’s wife aboard ship. Brewster obviously does a great deal of reading aboard ship but gives little detail or what she read or thought about it. p. 36, Feb. 4 1846: Were it not for seasickness I should be very comfortable. I get up with it and night finds me with the same symptoms so it unfits me for work and but little of the time I feel like reading. p. 40: Fri 20th: I am to sick to read think or do anything save roll from one side to the other. p. 44: March 6: This evening we resumed our old employment that of reading.... [Similar references, without specifics, can be found on p. 46, 50, 54, 55, 83, 95, 247, 255, 261, 265, 280 290, etc.] 4 p. 47, ftnt, Betsy Morey in 1853: I am much Pleased to see them [seamen] pay so much respect to the Sabath they all wash themselves clean and Change there Clothes and then I can see them with there Books A reading and this seems very pleasant to me. p. 95: …when being seasick I went to bed, took a book and attempted to loose my feelings in reading but that would not do…So I employed the time in vomiting and watching the time by the clock. p. 97: account of a dead young sailor who’d been sent to sea with books from his mother. The books “had not been read”. Frank “intended to wait till a year out and then commence studying….” p. 101, July 5: My thoughts and mind are taken up with the incidents of the day. I have read some in the Bible but not with the applying heart…. p. 246, June 26, 1846: This evening Mrs Whittlesey has read us a romantic story which our friend pronounced very good, who would think a woman of 50 would feel interested in love stories, when she pretends she prefers a single state of blessedness and occupies the same from choice.