Two Years Before the Mast

De: Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Narrado por: Kirby Heyborne

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840.

While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, he left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor on a voyage around Cape Horn on the brig Pilgrim. He returned to Massachusetts two years later aboard the Alert (which left California sooner than the Pilgrim). He kept a diary throughout the voyage, and, after returning, he wrote a book based on his experiences.

Recognized as an American classic, Two Years Before the Mast was published the same year that Dana was admitted to the bar.

Public Domain (P)2010 Tantor

Excellent story

This is a great story of sailing and the sailors lot back in the 1800’s.

Great story and narrator

The storytelling was easy to listen to and the narrator used their voice inflection with perfect timing. I think any young middle schooler who attends Dana middle school in Point Loma, San Diego should read this to provide a wonderful accounting to what went on nearby so many years ago on what is now known as Kellogg beach.

Great reader and ok story

Fairly interesting account of being a merchant sailor in 1830 and a detail of early CA. The author ended up seeming pretty pompous in the end, but the reader was terrific.

A nautical and historical classic

I really enjoyed this story of the lives of sailors in the 1800s. It's easy to think our work is hard until one hears and imagines the incredibly difficult lives of sailors in this time period. I love his description of the beauty he experienced as a sailor and of California in the early days of the forming of the US.

fantastic book

I don't care what anyone says negative about this it was riveting and I left me wanting more

Voice not appealing to me...

A compelling, fascinating true account, made possible by a Man in whom had the foresight to record this epic story...

Great Story

I wished I lived in SoCal back then. It’s not the same now. Too many people, the opposite of wild.

Very well read

A great story and a great performance. Reader's pronunciation of ship terms, like forecastle, shows expertise.

Great book; needs a better narrator

I love Two Years Before the Mast--it's a fascinating historical account of the real way that merchant sailors lived. The thing that bothered me about the narration is that the reader doesn't know how to pronounce many of the nautical terms--foresail mainsail, leeward--which is essential to an effective reading of this book.

A wonderful surprise

I have been telling everyone who will listen how much I loved this audiobook.

Two Years is one of those classics I never got around to reading. It is exactly the sort of book that benefits from a first-rate narrator who makes the listening experience perhaps even better than the reading experience. And that's saying a lot for a masterwork that was a bestseller in its time. There are, predictably, some sections that get caught up in the arcana of ship rigging. But Heyborne's voice and acting skill somehow power through them as he conveys the larger emotional experience (e.g. the terror of a storm) and pulls the listener along.

On a whim, I tried a sample by another narrator with a dreadful, pompous, uninflected English accent. Incredibly off-putting. I then happened to click on a sample of Heyborne's narration. His voice is appealing -- an energetic, animated young American, perhaps close to the age of Dana himself when he wrote his masterpiece, who clearly has acting talent. Dana was a Harvard student from a prominent Boston family when he developed vision issues, and determined that a couple of years at sea ("before the mast" meant as an ordinary working sailor) might ease his malady. Amazingly, it worked. He left Boston in 1834 on a voyage around Cape Horn to the California coast, where his ship was involved in the cattle hide trade.

The book is an extraordinary window into the maritime trade and the experience of the sailors themselves (as opposed to captains and shipowners). An unexpected bonus was the epilogue -- the last few chapters recounting Dana's return 25 years later to the same coast. In just over two decades, the relatively barren California coast had exploded, due to the Gold Rush. San Francisco was a thriving city of 150,000. Steam ships connected coastal towns in 2 hours, as opposed to 2 days. Astonishing.

If the subject matter is of any interest, give it a shot! Hats off to Kirby Heyborne.