Great Sea Stories Of All Nations

Men have written of the sea since 2500 BC, when an unknown author set down on papyrus his account of a struggle with a sea-serpent--the first sea-story on record. Modern sea-stories begin properly with the chronicles of the early navigators, and it is actually "Robinson Crusoe" that turns the great sea voyage into fiction, the foundation of the sea-tale as literary art. The literature of the sea grew slowly but surely, and it is hoped that this compilation offers indisputable evidence that the prose tradition is sustained, and that readers new to it will find the theme marvelously interesting.

The goal of this collection of the greatest sea adventure novels is to awake your lust of voyage, your sense of adventure and the joy of discovery. Content: Captain Charles Johnson: The History of Pirates R. L. Stevenson: Treasure Island Jack London: The Sea Wolf The Mutiny of the Elsinore A Son of the Sun Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe Captain Singleton Tobias Smollett: The Adventures of Roderick Random Walter Scott: The Pirate Frederick Marryat: Mr. Midshipman Easy Masterman Ready; Or, The Wreck of the "Pacific" Edgar Allan Poe: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket James Fenimore Cooper: The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea The Red Rover Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale Miles Wallingford Homeward Bound; Or, The Chase: A Tale of the Sea Thomas Mayne Reid: The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea Victor Hugo: Toilers of the Sea Herman Melville: Redburn White-Jacket Moby Dick Benito Cereno R. M. Ballantyne: The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean Fighting the Whales Jules Verne: The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras In Search of the Castaways; Or, The Children of Captain Grant 20 000 Leagues under the Sea Dick Sand: A Captain at Fifteen An Antarctic Mystery L. Frank Baum: Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea Randall Parrish: Wolves of the Sea Charles Boardman Hawes: The Dark Frigate The Mutineers Joseph Conrad: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' Lord Jim Typhoon The Shadow Line The Arrow of Gold Rudyard Kipling: Captains Courageous Ralph Henry Barbour: The Adventure Club Afloat Rafael Sabatini: Captain Blood The Sea-Hawk Jeffery Farnol: Black Bartlemy's Treasure Martin Conisby's Vengeance Henry De Vere Stacpoole: The Blue Lagoon The Garden of God

Stories, some fictional, some factual, about the ocean frontiers, chosen to "leave the beaten track of the yo-heave-ho school of sea fiction ... and include other facets of sea life than the tough-guy fellows."

It is strange to think of a very old world, when men knew nothing of the great salt sea that washed their shores, and nothing of the wonderful lands, that lay beyond. Each day the sun rose and set as it does to-day, but they did not know the reason why: the rivers flowed through the land, but they did not know whence they came, or whither they went.

Connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millennia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. In this brilliant and expansive book, David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters-sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims-who have crossed and re-crossed it. Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all a history of human interaction. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. He stresses the remarkable ability of Mediterranean cultures to uphold the civilizing ideal of convivencia, "living together." Now available in paperback, The Great Sea is the definitive account of perhaps the most vibrant theater of human interaction in history.