NEW copy. Viking, 1999. Notes, index, 270 pages. From Publishers Weekly: "What's not to like in a narrative that features pirates, rude seamen and exotic ports? Tyng (1801-1879), who rose from cabin boy to captain and prosperous merchant, wrote this account of his early sailing days in later life. In 1996, this memoir was found by his great-great-granddaughter, Susan Fels, who edited the 419-page handwritten manuscript. An unruly boy sent to live in various homes by his rather forbidding father, Tyng first shipped on a merchant vessel at the age of 13. He hated it. But he loved his second voyage and soon became one of the youngest captains in the American merchant fleet. As Tyng tells of voyages around the world carrying cargoes of bullion, tea, linseed oil, molasses and other items to Holland, China, Cuba and other destinations, he writes with understatement, modesty and a deadpan humor that might or might not be intentional. Consider this description of an aborted mutiny: The cook who was standing near the cambose with an iron ladle in his hand... struck Williams a stunning blow with the ladle which put him down. Of Havana's dangerous streets, he writes: There were placed along the back of the Palace, a row of wooden benches, for the deposit of bodies of those who had been assassinated in the night and picked up in the morning, that their friends might find them. Tyng's voyages frequently struck a tangent to history: he met Lord Byron in Italy, was intercepted by a British man of war guarding the imprisoned Napoleon at St. Helena and saw the first Atlantic steamship. His collection of salty anecdotes will make a pleasing diversion for fans of Patrick O'Brian."

Hardcover OUT OF PRINT.

$25.00