The sea and Great Lakes have inspired American authors from colonial times to the present to produce enduring literary works. This reference is a comprehensive survey of American sea literature. The scope of the encyclopedia ranges from the earliest printed matter produced in the colonies to contemporary experiments in published prose, poetry, and drama. The book also acknowledges how literature gives rise to adaptations and resonances in music and film and includes coverage of nonliterary topics that have nonetheless shaped American literature of the sea and Great Lakes. The alphabetical arrangement of the reference facilitates access to facts about major literary works, characters, authors, themes, vessels, places, and ideas that are central to American sea literature. Each of the several hundred entries is written by an expert contributor and many provide bibliographical information. While the encyclopedia includes entries for white male canonical writers such as Herman Melville and Jack London, it also gives considerable attention to women at sea and to ethnically diverse authors, works, and themes. The volume concludes with a chronology and a list of works for further reading.

The South Seas, as this region used to be called, conjured up images of adventure, belles and savages, romance and fabulous fortunes, but the long voyages of discovery and exploration of the vast Pacific Ocean were really an exercise in amazing logistics, navigation, hard grit, shipwreck and pure luck. The motivations were scientific and geographic, but at the same time nationalistic and materialistic. A series on global exploration and discovery would not be complete without this book by Quanchi and Robson. It is ambitious and informative and includes the familiar names of Laperouse, Bougainville, Cook and Dampier, as well as the intriguing stories of the Bounty Mutiny, scurvy, and the mysterious Northwest Passage, Terra Australis Ignotia and Davis Land. There are entries on first contacts, ships, navigational instruments, mapping, and botany. The scene is carefully set in the introduction, the chronology spans several centuries, and the extensive bibliography offers a guide to further reading. There are more than just dry facts in this book. It has a whiff of salt air, the clash of empires, cross-cultural beach encounters and personal adventure.

This study offers a chronological history of seal fishing in the Falkland Islands and Dependencies from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first. It concerns the fluctuating seal population due to sealing; the Atlantic and global demand for seal fur and oil; the competition between American, British, and Canadian sealers over the territory’s seal stocks; and the attempts by various ruling governments to prioritise domestic sealing, maintain sufficient seal stocks, and continue to make profit. It is comprised of nine chapters, the first and last chapters of which serve as introduction and conclusion. The study also includes eight appendices presenting tabled statistics, and a select bibliography. The appendices concern seal skin imports into London; vessel details at Puerto Soledad; the value and amount of seal products exported from the Falklands; Canadian sealing vessels entering Port Stanley; seal catch and oil yield in South Georgia; South Georgian seal catch summaries; South Georgian commercial catches by sealing division; and marine mammal products landed in the Newfoundland fisheries region.

American mariners made more than 175 voyages to the Northwest Coast during the half-century after 1787. The art and culture of Northwest Coast Indians so intrigued American sailors that the collecting of ethnographic artifacts became an important secondary trade. Malloy has brought details about these early collections together for the first time.

Collectively these elements paint a vivid portrait of an adventurous era on the high seas and of a young man eager to find his way in the world.