A Checklist of Narratives of Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea to 1860: With Summaries, Notes, and Comments - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813808855 ISBN 13: 9780813808857

Publisher: Iowa State University Press, 1979

Synopsis

Before the advent of reasonably safe ocean travel in the later 19th century, readers could experience the precariousness of existence at one remove through published accounts of maritime disasters, while consoling themselves with the realization that they would not be reading such accounts if such disasters were 100% fatal. The more perceptive might note, of course, that many of the shipwrecks were also catastrophes of human behavior... Some of these accounts also had other uses, for ex., the 1821 narrative of the sinking of the whaling ship Essex by a whale in 1820, one of Melville's sources for Moby Dick. This interesting bibliography, compiled from various sources, contains 426 entries for personal accounts, second-hand narratives, collections of accounts, and some tales of sea disasters formerly accepted as genuine but now thought fictional, or probably so. There are often summaries or other annotations. Entries for collections list contents. The index includes entries for authors making use of or influenced by particular narratives. Irregularly faded. xiv, 194 pages. cloth.. 8vo..

Edition details

• Publisher: Iowa State University Press
• Publication date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813808855
• ISBN 13: 9780813808857
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 194
• Editor: Huntress Keith