Before the Wind: The Memoir of an American Sea Captain, 1808-1833

In a fascinating look at early nineteenth-century America, this memoir by American sea captain Charles Tyng chronicles his life, from his childhood, through his love affair with the sea, to his rise through the ranks to captain and ship owner in the tea and sugar trade. 17,500 first printing.

What's not to like in a narrative that features pirates, rude seamen and exotic ports? Tyng (1801-1879), who rose from cabin boy to captain and prosperous merchant, wrote this account of his early sailing days in later life. In 1996, this memoir was found by his great-great-granddaughter, Susan Fels, who edited the 419-page handwritten manuscript. An unruly boy sent to live in various homes by his rather forbidding father, Tyng first shipped on a merchant vessel at the age of 13. He hated it. But he loved his second voyage and soon became one of the youngest captains in the American merchant fleet. As Tyng tells of voyages around the world carrying cargoes of bullion, tea, linseed oil, molasses and other items to Holland, China, Cuba and other destinations, he writes with understatement, modesty and a deadpan humor that might or might not be intentional. Consider this description of an aborted mutiny: "The cook who was standing near the cambose with an iron ladle in his hand... struck Williams a stunning blow with the ladle which put him down." Of Havana's dangerous streets, he writes: "There were placed along the back of the Palace, a row of wooden benches, for the deposit of bodies of those who had been assassinated in the night and picked up in the morning, that their friends might find them." Tyng's voyages frequently struck a tangent to history: he met Lord Byron in Italy, was intercepted by a British man of war guarding the imprisoned Napoleon at St. Helena and saw the first Atlantic steamship. His collection of salty anecdotes will make a pleasing diversion for fans of Patrick O'Brian.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Shipping merchant Charles Tyng's wonderfully vivid memoir of his wild and adventurous years as a sea boy and then captain on blue-water vessels. At the age of 13, Tyng was sent to sea, to China, by his father. The year was 1814; Tyng was a lowly, ignorant, scared, and abused sea boy. The voyage took a year and a half, and when it was done, Tyng had had enough of sailing. Tough, said his father, and so his profession was sealed. But Tyng shifted for himself, learned his craft, and climbed the rungs until he, in a terrific sleigh-of-hand, bought his first boat. What bestowed on Tyng enough exciting memories to fill a book was his hungry curiosity, taking every chance ``while the boat lay at the landing to walk round and see the people, and get some idea of what was going on.'' Between the summonings of port lifefrom opium dens to wharf-side eateriesarchitectural descriptions, and landscape delineations, there are North Sea gales to reckon with, pirates to outrace, boils to lance, unwanted tattoos to carve off, spells in prison to survive (``a place too horrid to think of''), and mutinies, some to partake in, others to quash. After his first unfortunate trip, Tyng took to the seas, and after a few circumnavigations (``This was the island where Capt. Cook was killed, and eaten, and I was told the Indian who killed him was still alive''), he settled down to runs across the Atlantic, taking sugar to Barcelona and wine to Havana, drumming up trade, acquiring more boats, trying to maintain order: ``The bully of the crew . . . gave me a blow in my right temple, which sent me headlong in the lee scuppers.'' The book ends on a cliffhangerhe is in the last stages of Asiatic cholerawhen Tyng is only 32; he has another 47 years to live. Tyng's saga, edited by his great-great-granddaughter, grips with its lively immediacy and transports with its mildly antique but always expressive language. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

When Tyng (1801-79), not quite 14 years old, embarked from Boston as a "sailor boy" on the merchant ship Cordelia for a year-and-a-half voyage around the world to China and back, it was an event that shaped an incipient "black sheep" into an enterprising and determined young man who became a successful captain and ship owner in the tea and sugar trade. His memoirsAonly recently discovered and edited by great-great-granddaughter Fels, an editor in Washington, DCAcompare favorably with Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast (1840). Tyng describes his unhappy childhood, recalls the varied ups and downs of his maritime trading experiences, and gives sharply detailed accounts of storms, shipwrecks, mutinies, and other near-death adventures at sea. His distinctive voice, at once dramatic, informative, and intensely personal, re-creates the world of the early 19th century in a true-life account that C.S. Forester or Patrick O'Brian would find difficult to match. Recommended for all public libraries.ARobert C. Jones, formerly with Central Missouri State Univ., Warrensburg
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This never-before-published time capsule of U.S. maritime history is also a remarkable reminiscence, penned when Tyng was in his 70s. In a businesslike tone, he traces his rise from deckhand to shipowner in the Boston area; he remembered exactly his wages, profits on cargoes, and purchase prices of ships. But to contemporary eyes, this is no business memoir but an exotic travelogue through the maritime world of the 1820s. It was terribly dangerous, from ordinary perils, such as being tossed overboard or shipwrecked, to encounters with pirates and vigilance against mutineers. The post-Napoleonic world presented such sights to Tyng as the ships of Trafalgar deteriorating at their docks; a frigate guarding old Boney himself at St. Helena; the first trans-Atlantic steamship, the Savannah; a half hour's badinage with Lord Byron; gunfire at Marseilles heralding the July 1830 revolution; and the South Carolina fire-eaters in the 1832 nullification crisis. Such Gump-like novelties brighten the intrinsic color this adventure holds for maritime buffs. Gilbert Taylor