Two Years Before the Mast (1947 Heritage Press edition), illustrated by Hans Alexander Mueller, is a masterful interpretation of Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s 1840 maritime memoir, capturing the brutal beauty of life aboard a 19th-century merchant brig. This Heritage Press volume showcases Mueller’s stark wood engravings—their jagged, expressive lines evoking the relentless motion of the sea and the toil of sailors wrestling with frozen sails off Cape Horn. The German-American artist’s 23 illustrations, printed in rich black ink on heavy cream paper, emphasize the memoir’s documentary realism: every rope coil and calloused hand is rendered with ethnographic precision, while dramatic double-page spreads of storms and sunsets mirror Dana’s shift from privileged Harvard student to hardened seaman.
Two Years Before the Mast – Richard Henry Dana 1947 | Heritage Press
$25.00
- Author:
Richard Henry Dana; Hans Alexander Mueller illustrator - Publisher:
The Heritage Press, 1947 - Binding:
Hardcover - Condition:
Near Fine - Size:
8vo - Attributes:
Illustrated
First Heritage Press edition thus. Pictorial cloth, spine sun faded, binding tight, square, internally fine, unmarked. Illustrated with many wonderful engravings by Hans Alexander Mueller. Near Fine in Near Fine original slipcase.
