Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
While at sea he made entries almost daily in a pocket notebook and
at leisure hours wrote these out fully. This full account of his
voyage was lost with his trunk containing sailors' clothes and all
souvenirs and presents for family and friends by the carelessness
of a relative who took charge of his things at the wharf when he
landed in Boston in 1836. Later, while in the Law School, Mr. Dana
re-wrote this account from the notebook, which, fortunately, he
had not entrusted to the lost trunk. This account he read to his
father and Washington Allston, artist and poet, his uncle by
marriage. Both advised its publication and the manuscript was sent
to William Cullen Bryant, who had then moved to New York. Mr.
Bryant, after looking it over, took it to a prominent publisher of
his city, as the publishers at that time most able to give the
book a large sale. They offered to buy the book outright but
refused the author any share in the profits. The firm had
submitted the manuscript to Alonzo Potter, afterwards Bishop of
Pennsylvania, then acting as one of their readers. Bishop Potter,
meeting Dana in England years later, told him most emphatically
that he had advised the purchase at any price necessary to secure
it. The most, however, that the elder Dana and Bryant were able to
get from the publishers was $250, so that modest sum with two
dozen printed copies was all the author received at that time for
this most successful book. Incidentally, however, the publication
brought Mr. Dana law practice, especially among sailors, and was
an introduction to him not only in this country but in England.
Editions were published in Great Britain and France. Moxon, the
London publisher, sent Mr. Dana not only presentation copies but
as a voluntary honorarium, there being no international copyright
law at that time, a sum of money larger than the publisher gave
him for the manuscript. He also received kindly words of
appreciation from Rogers, Brougham, Moore, Bulwer, Dickens and
others, and fifteen years later his reputation secured him a large
social and literary reception in England in 1856. At last, in
1868, the original copyright expired and my father brought out the
``author's edition'' thoroughly revised and with many important
additions to the text including the ``Twenty-four Years After''
under a fair arrangement for percentage of sales with Fields,
Osgood and Co., the predecessors of the present publishers.
In reading the story of this Harvard College undergraduate's
experience, one should bear in mind, to appreciate the dangers of
his rounding the Cape, that the brig Pilgrim was only one hundred
and eighty tons burden and eighty-six feet and six inches long,
shorter on the water line than many of our summer-sailing sloop
and schooner yachts.
Richard Henry Dana.
[1] ``Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'' A Biography. By Charles Francis Adams.
In two volumes. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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