To the Sea Again: Classic Sailing Stories

by Tom McCarthy (Editor)

Few people would want to test their mettle in an ice-encrusted boat with Ernest Shackleton, sail the Straits of Magellan with Joshua Slocum, or watch with Owen Chase as an angry whale sends his ship to the bottom, thousands of miles from the nearest land. But it's quite another thing to read these true accounts while settled into a favorite chair. Shackleton and Chase persevered in the face of travails that would have given even Job pause. Their stoic accounts are stronger and more dramatic for their total lack of affection, their frankness, and their lack of ego. Their gripping stories are custom made for the imaginative reader who seeks adventure in a more controlled environment, safe and warm, and well fed. Civilized readers with their armchairs anchored firmly to the living room floor.

Rich in drama and history, here are fifteen stories that will entertain, inform, and inspire--enduring stories that have attracted generations of readers.

With contributions
William Shakespeare
Aaron Smith
Joseph Conrad
Erskine Childers
Joshua Slocum
James Fenimore Cooper
Herman Melville
Richard Henry Dana
Jerome K. Jerome
Edgar Allan Poe
Richard Hakluyt
Robert Louis Stevenson
Owen Chase
Ernest Shackleton

Genres: Fiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Tom McCarthy grew up on the Great Lakes. His love of sailing and the ocean is a driving force behind this collection of stories. He lives in Chester, Connecticut with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews

[Domenic]

A great selection of excerpted stories form classic sailing novels and memoirs. I thoroughly enjoyed each one (even re-reading those I’d already read). I was also introduced to books I’d read in their entirety - a successful sign of such a book.

[Dale]

As McCarthy (the editor) indicates in his introduction, it is nearly impossible to select a set of sea stories that will please all readers. He does manage to include Melville (twice), Dana, Slocum, and Conrad, but also includes non-obvious choices such as Shakespeare (from "The Tempest") and Edgar Allen Poe. In all, I found the selection interesting, the content less so. But if this small collection has the side effect of introducing readers to works that they wouldn't otherwise encounter, then I guess McCarthy has done his job.

[Dan]

This book was a gift from my grandson that be bought for me in Alaska this Summer. It has some amazing stories about survival at sea, through the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South America and a dangerous passage in the Antarctic Ocean. It also made me appreciate the how hard sea life was and can be, with the long voyages and deadly boredom at times.