Two Years Before The Mast

RICHARD HENRY DANA Two Years Before the Mast Richard Henry Dana was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 1, 1815. He was the son of the American poet who, with W.C. Bryant, founded "The North American Review," and grandson of Francis Dana, for some time United States Minister to Russia, and afterwards Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Young Dana entered Harvard in 1832, but being troubled with an affection of the eyes, shipped as a common sailor on board an American merchant vessel, and made a voyage round Cape Horn to California and back. His experiences are embodied in his "Two Years Before the Mast," which was published in 1840, about three years after his return, when he had graduated at Harvard, and in the year in which he was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar.