Description
Excerpts from Susan Hathorn’s journal, combined with contextualizing remark by Catherine Petroski, create a vivid picture of day by day life and social mores within the age of sail.
In 1855, Susan Hathorn set sail with her new husband Jode, captain of a three-masted cargo ship. She recorded their travel from Philadelphia to Savannah, Georgia, and on to Cuba and London in a diary. En route, the beauties of a moon rising over Cuban mountains, shipboard duties, and the pleasures of socializing with other seafarers are interspersed with reports of sea squalls, bedbugs, and a too-energetic crew. “Extraordinary doings within the galley,” she notes amusingly. “Stewardess inebriated as a beast–thinks her husband so–had a standard fight.” Her diary entries are knit together by Catherine Petroski’s infrequently dry, but frequently enriching comments on sea life, shipping, and Hathorn’s background.