For a century, the history of the novel has been written in terms of nations and territories: the English novel, the French novel, the American novel. But what if novels were viewed in terms of the seas that unite these different lands? Examining works across two centuries, The Novel and the Sea recounts the novel's rise, told from the perspective of the ship's deck and the allure of the oceans in the modern cultural imagination. Margaret Cohen moors the novel to overseas exploration and work at sea, framing its emergence as a transatlantic history, steeped in the adventures and risks of the maritime frontier. Cohen explores how Robinson Crusoe competed with the best-selling nautical literature of the time by dramatizing remarkable conditions, from the wonders of unknown lands to storms, shipwrecks, and pirates. She considers James Fenimore Cooper's refashioning of the adventure novel in postcolonial America, and a change in literary poetics toward new frontiers and to the maritime labor and technology of the nineteenth century. Cohen shows how Jules Verne reworked adventures at sea into science fiction; how Melville, Hugo, and Conrad navigated the foggy waters of language and thought; and how detective and spy fiction built on sea fiction's problem-solving devices. She also discusses the transformation of the ocean from a theater of skilled work to an environment of pristine nature and the sublime. A significant literary history, The Novel and the Sea challenges readers to rethink their land-locked assumptions about the novel.

This commemorative volume records a special kind of dual citizenship: Canadians exercising the profession of the sea in their nation's service, while also living out civilian occupations in their home communities. The perspectives of these citizen sailors provide an interesting, valuable, and timely alternative history of the Navy.

Emphasizing different themes and concepts of the holiday each year.

For more than twenty years, Roy Underhill has taught the techniques of traditional woodcraft with muscle-powered tools. With his four previous books and his popular PBS series, The Woodwright's Shop, now in its sixteenth season, Roy has inspired millions to take up chisel and plane. The master woodwright returns here with instructions for handcrafting an appealing selection of projects from the American woodworking tradition. The Woodwright's Apprentice begins with directions for building a workbench. Each successive project builds new skills for the apprentice woodworker--from frame construction to dovetailing, turning, steam-bending, and carving. Among the twenty items featured are an African chair, a telescoping music stand, a walking-stick chair, a fireplace bellows, and a revolving Windsor chair. Designed both for woodworking novices and for more seasoned woodworkers looking for enjoyable projects, the book includes step-by-step directions, complete with easy-to-follow photographs and measured drawings, and an illustrated glossary of tools and terms. All of the pieces presented here are based on projects featured in past and upcoming seasons of The Woodwright's Shop television show.