The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century

The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century
Average customer rating:

A great and haunting tale

Beautifully written, articulate and evocative

Response to the "Lover of Good Books'" Review

Stretching the Facts to Support A Rabidly Marxist Viewpoint

Reads like a novel

The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century
Martha Hodes
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393052664

Book Description

"What a terrific book! I could hardly put it down….A story of triumph over adversity."—James McPherson

Award-winning historian Martha Hodes brings us into the extraordinary world of Eunice Connolly. Born white and poor in New England, Eunice moved from countryside to factory city, worked in the mills, then followed her husband to the Deep South. When the Civil War came, Eunice's brothers joined the Union army while her husband fought and died for the Confederacy. Back in New England, a widow and the mother of two, Eunice barely got by as a washerwoman, struggling with crushing depression. Four years later, she fell in love with a black sea captain, married him, and moved to his home in the West Indies. Following every lead in a collection of 500 family letters, Hodes traced Eunice's footsteps and met descendants along the way. This story of misfortune and defiance takes up grand themes of American history—opportunity and racism, war and freedom—and illuminates the lives of ordinary people in the past. 47 illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

A great and haunting tale .......2007-09-04

A wonderful book that will leave you longing for more! Eunice is a real heroine struggling as many women have to raise a family in desperate times and looking for a haven for her children. Not only an engaging story about one woman's search for her place in the world but the times in which she resides. Food for the brain and soul. Well written by a noted historian.

Beautifully written, articulate and evocative.......2007-07-13

Gifted writer Martha Hodes, a history professor at New York University, has given readers an absorbing account of the life of a New England woman in mid-1800s. Hodes researched widely from many sources, and drew extensively on the letters of Eunice Richardson Stone Connally, to give us a riveting and accurate picture of her life and times. Hodes' prose is thoughtfully elegant and carefully crafted, as she takes us through small New England mill towns, as far south as Mobile, Alabama, and in the final years of Eunice's life, to the Cayman Islands, where Eunice at last found happiness and some measure of prosperity. The book is a fine blend of the events of Civil War era and the personal struggles of an ordinary woman who made some unusual choices. Hodes writes with a superbly intelligent grasp of Eunice's situation, and with a marvelous empathy for Eunice and the people near to her.

I recently read a bloated best-seller about one of the most famous women of our own era, and I can't help contrasting the arch, dishy, and rather tiresome tone of that book, to this moving and authentic biography of an obscure woman of an earlier time. The book is richly satisfying and highly recommended.

Response to the "Lover of Good Books'" Review.......2007-06-10

A few quick comments regarding the previous negative critique...

A). A great number, if not most, people from the laboring classes never achieve a solid sense of `class consciousness' (in other words, they do not consciously consider themselves of the `working class'). This was particularly true during the time and place of which Hodes writes ( though applicable today). Even if the economic circumstances of Hodes' key subjects fluctuated, they did 'labor' with their bodies to survive. Therefore, it is fair to allow Hodes to consider them laboring/working people, as these individuals' general economic experiences heavily impacted their existence/s.

B). A key lesson one should learn while obtaining an "advanced degree in history" (as well as in high school history classes) is to be very careful about viewing the past through the lens of the present or assuming that subjects from the past (existing under diverging conditions and pressures historians are endlessly seeking to understand) should be expected to think or act as you or I would.. In other words, one's perception of "small town rural New England" of today should not discredit Hodes' historical analysis of the same region.
(This is in reference to... "And no one who has spent any time in small town rural New England would buy into the author's contention that these people were obsessed with a racist-based fear that competition from black slave workers would further lower their social class...")

C). It should not be assumed that every scholar concerned with class is a Marxist (or using "Marxist analysis," as if there is such a thing). I, myself, come from a working class background, count working class studies as one of my fields of interest, find some of Marx's ideas (and ideas of others who have been labled Marxists) useful, but do not limit my work to, or even base it on, "Marxist ideologies." Hodes' appears to work in a similar manner.

There is much more I could critique about this unfair review, but the other comments (all five stars at this point) say much for the value others have found in Hodes' work.

Ultimately, Dr. Hodes is a well respected scholar in the field of history who writes about the intertwining of race, gender and class. If one is not particularly concerned with these issues and/or considers those who are "grievance collectors, looking for new proofs of racism and classism in the past," as the Lover of Good Books does, you should probably read something else. Otherwise, I highly recommend that potential readers not be dissuaded by an unfair review.

Stretching the Facts to Support A Rabidly Marxist Viewpoint.......2007-04-30

The author of this book is so wedded to a Marxist interpretation of history that she turns her subjects into cardboard puppets acting out a drama in which class struggle and racist viewpoints are the only motivations for human action. Occasionally the primary sources she manhandles peek through the many paragraphs of Marxist analysis, and when they do, they don't support the author's arguments.

The title character in the story, for starters, is not "working class" though the author hammers at the idea that she is throughout the book. Her family are typical smallholding Yankees, contending with varying economic conditions throughout their lives, which meant they were poor some of the time, and better off at others.

But nothing in the primary sources the author quotes supports the idea that the protagonists perceived themselves as being "workers" or working class. They did what they had to do to earn money, which was often tough, but their class identity is clearly that of small town Yankees, something very different from the "oppressed worker" identity the author would confer on them.

And no one who has spent any time in small town rural New England would buy into the author's contention that these people were obsessed with a racist-based fear that competition from black slave workers would further lower their social class.

The author supports this far-fetched idea by quoting a few other people, from other regions, mostly urban, as if their attitudes were characteristic of these Yankees, which they aren't. She tellingly does NOT quote many other people from the same actual Yankee social class as her subjects whose attitude--and ACTION--towards Black people was not the selfish racist attitude she would have us believe was typical.

Secondly, the author interprets her subject's marriage to a man from the Cayman islands as a major statement about race. This is completely NOT supported by any word in the (slim) primary sources she cites. For that matter, not a word in the primary sources supports the author's contention that her subject was shunned by her relatives. Because so much of the authorial commentary drones on about race and class and so many quotations are thrown in from people who have nothing to do with the protagonists, the reader might miss this.

For example, before she meets her mixed race husband, "The Captain's Wife" frequently complains about not getting letters from her family. Then she complains about not getting letters when she's living on an island with no postal service. But the author twists the latter complaints into proof that the woman's family has cut her off because of her interracial marriage. In fact, not a single word of any of the letters cited here tells us anything explicit about the family, or the "Captain's wife's" feelings about this marriage.

But this doesn't deter the author who seems unable to interpret any human behavior except as the product of class consciousness or racism. Even worse, the author's own smugness about the correctness of her own class and racial attitudes bleeds out of every paragraph.

I have read very widely in primary sources from this period (I, too, have an advanced degree in History) and I have lived for decades in one of the rural regions she writes about so I know something about the poor but proud Yankee mentality and racial attitudes in that culture--which are mostly formed by the complete LACK of any Black people in the environment.

The author seems to me to have come up with a theme--New England Racism--and then looked around for some bits of history she could manhandle into supporting her thesis. The critical word here is "bits" as the primary source material she builds this construction out of are so slim.

I also feel very sorry for someone whose only way of making sense of the richness of the human life experience is to map every thought or action down to a response to economically-defined social class and racial identity. There are so many fascinating issues that these letters raise that go undiscussed: the Yankee culture with its valuing of education and its resiliency in very tough economic conditions being prime.

But as long as academic historians see themselves as grievance collectors, looking for new proofs of racism and classism in the past, instead of students of the human experience, this kind of book will continue to issue from the academic community. Which probably explains why most of the good history writing today is coming from the pens of independent scholars.

Reads like a novel.......2007-01-11

I bought this book for my wife and she thinks that it is a fascinating and well written book. A great history book that keeps you involved all the way to the end. You just keep thinking about it.

Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel

Average customer rating:

A True Reading Pleasure!!
Ahab's fictional wife's philosphical musings and deep inner life
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
Comments about "Ahab's Wife"
AHAB'S WIFE--WHAT A FABULOUS BOOK

Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel
Sena Jeter Naslund
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0688171877

Amazon.com

It has been said that one can see farther only by standing on the shoulders of giants. Ahab's Wife, Sena Naslund's epic work of historical fiction, honors that aphorism, using Herman Melville's Moby-Dick as looking glass into early-19th-century America. Through the eye of an outsider, a woman, she suggests that New England life was broader and richer than Melville's manly world of men, ships, and whales. This ambitious novel pays tribute to Melville, creating heroines from his lesser characters, and to America's literary heritage in general.

Una, named for the heroine of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, flees to the New England coast from Kentucky to escape her father's puritanism and to pursue a more exalted life. She gets whaling out of her system early: going to sea at 16 disguised as a boy, Una has her ship sunk by her own monstrous whale, and survives a harrowing shipwreck:

I was so horrified by the whale's deliberate charge that I could not move. Then my own name flew up from below like a spear: "Una!" Giles' voice broke my trance, and I scrambled down the rigging. No sooner did my foot touch the deck than there was such a lurch that I fell to my face. I heard and felt the boards break below the waterline, the copper sheathing nothing but decorative foil. The whole ship shuddered. A death throe.

The ship dies, but Una returns to land to pursue the life of the mind. The novel's opening line--"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last"--also diminishes Melville's hero in the broader scheme of things. Naslund exposes the reader to the unsung, real-life heroes of Melville's world, including Margaret Fuller and her Boston salon, and Nantucket astronomer Maria Mitchell. There is a chance meeting with a veiled Nathaniel Hawthorne in the woods, and throughout the novel the story brims with references to the giants of literature: Shakespeare, Goethe, Coleridge, Keats, and Wordsworth. Although her novel runs long at nearly 700 pages, Naslund has created an imaginative, entertaining, and very impressive work. --Ted Leventhal

Book Description

"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last."

This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab.

Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force.

Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship.

Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.

"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last."

This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael."Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab.

Download Description

E-Book extras: ONE: An Interview with Sena Jeter Naslund: "The Ship of My Book"; TWO: Author's Note: "The Surprise and Pleasure of It"; THREE: Reading Group Guide: Discussion Points. The famous international bestseller is now a special-features-packed e-book. Inspired by a brief passage in Moby-Dick, Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe - an epic-scale, enthralling, and deliciously readable saga, spanning the full, rich, eventful, and dramatic life of one Una Spenser, for whom "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." Illustrated throughout by world-renowned artist Christopher Wormell.

Customer Reviews:

A True Reading Pleasure!!.......2007-10-02

Terrific writing, stunningly embellished with vivid descriptions and details, but easy to read. Subject matter is fascinating!

Ahab's fictional wife's philosphical musings and deep inner life.......2007-09-20

Ahab's Fictional Wife's Philosphical Musings and Deep Inner Life is a title that aptly describes this endless novel. The segments that were plot-driven, such as Una's adventures as a sailor and the mental illness of her first husband, were wonderful. Ahab, until now merely an icon, was infused with genuine humanity, and the story of their marriage was so well done. Life on Nantucket and the experience of sea captains' wives are vividly drawn. Naslund is a very good writer. It was all the stuff in between (Una's odes to her sewing needle, her effusive love affair with the seas, her genius despite her poor education, to offer just a few out of dozens of examples) that brings my rating down to 3 stars. Maybe this new writer was given a new editor. Someone should have blue pencilled about 200 pages of filler. Certainly Abundance is a much tauter production. This book might have been equally good.

Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund.......2007-09-19

Ahab's Wife serves admirably as a companion book to Melville's Moby-Dick and having read both, I think I can safely say that if Herman Melville were to read Ahab's Wife, he would be more than happy with the duty and accuracy Naslund devotes to the period, the prose, and its homage to Melville's opus.

This is the life story of Una, the wife of Ahab - the peg-legged determined-bordering-on-insane captain of the Pequod in search of his white whale. The cover of the book depicts a Puritan-clothed woman on a harsh beach looking out into a rough sea, while further down the beach lies the broken hulk of an old ship. It creates images and ideas of a worrying woman left at home for years at a time to tend to house and children, while her husband is out braving the sea, fighting giants monsters in his man's world. One would think this a book about her everyday actions, her chores, her repetitive characteristics, and while this is part of the book, there is so much more going on in Una's life with her triumphs and tribulations, her loves and deaths, her dangerous adventures, and her happy times at home. This is what makes Ahab's Wife a welcome companion to Moby-Dick, for while Ahab's is a story of adventure and danger, Una's is just as much so.

The book begins, as all life stories should, with a birth, only Una's mother is all alone in a cabin and naturally it is a birth that almost kills her. Una's life is a harsh one in Kentucky and before she is ten, her mother sends her away to her aunt's. Una's father is a devout Christian, while Una is an atheist from a young age, choosing not to blindly believe in what her father tells her to believe. Her mother fearing for her life, sends her to the distant coast of New England to live with her aunt and uncle in a lighthouse. And so begins the next chapter in her life, with a different family, in a different place. With the arrival of two men who come to upgrade the lighthouse, she falls in love with both of them - even though she is still young - knowing that one will be her husband one day. At the age of eighteen, she leaves the island and the lighthouse for the mainland of Boston and then Nantucket getting by on simple work until she finds the same two men whom she loves on a whaling ship. Disguising herself as a young boy she joins the crew and experiences the whaling life of her future husband. It is here that she first sees The Pequod and meets Ahab, who by then is an old man but still respectable and honorable. Ahab is the one to marry Una to Kit when her existence on the ship, love for that man, and her femininity are all revealed.

A whale stoves in the ship and Una spends many days on a small boat with the remaining crew reduced to cannibalism - harking to the story of Moby-Dick as well as the story of the whale ship Essex, which was the impetus for Melville's story. It is on the return journey to Nantucket that the other love of her life dies tragically and her husband Kit essentially goes insane. Upon returning to land and leaving her husband due to his condition, Una's life slows down and her relationship with Ahab begins until their marriage and happiness together. It is here that the story of Moby-Dick truly begins and the reader gets to meet the familiar characters of the classic book. But while Ahab spends years away from home, Una's life goes on with the birth of a child and the struggles of her life. It is upon the return and meeting of Ishmael that Una learns of the doomed story of Ahab, his white whale, and his death.

The book could be considered technically over at this point, but this is the story of Una, who is still very much alive. The rest of her life is spent interacting with Ishmael and even meeting and interacting with the slave who fought for his freedom, Frederick Douglass. And while she never forgets her life with Ahab, she eventually finds another husband and in the waning years of her life is happy once more.

What makes Ahab's Wife a truly impressive book is not just its intended mimicry with Moby-Dick with the crossing over characters, similar layout of the book with many chapters and illustrations, and actual scenes involving the same location in both books such as the church with the pulpit carved to imitate the bow of a ship which the same preacher from Moby-Dick climbs the ladder to the top and scream of hellfire and damnation; it is the prose and how Naslund writes that truly emulates the style of Melville, making this a truly important work of literature deserving a place in the shelves with Melville, James and Hawthorne.

For more book reviews, and other writings, go to www.alexctelander.com

Comments about "Ahab's Wife".......2007-07-26

What awesome descriptions and captivating storyline! I couldn't put this book down! It makes me want to read "Moby Dick" again! I look forward to reading Sena Jeter Naslund's other novels. If they are half as good as the story of Una, I am hooked! I found that Una is so much like my daughter, and the author never met my daughter. Of course, this made the story even more interesting to me. The personalities are so diverse and very believable. I would recommend this book to everyone.

AHAB'S WIFE--WHAT A FABULOUS BOOK.......2007-07-10

Yes, dear ladies and gentlemen, I truly loved this book, despite what some of our colleagues wrote. I usually read true crime novels and biographies, so this story was truly quite a different one to read.
Once again, just fabulous.

Diary of a Sea Captain's Wife: Tales of Santa Cruz Island

Average customer rating:

Subsistence lifestyle on a gorgeous California Island
One tough lady, and INCREDIBLE book!
One tough lady, and INCREDIBLE book!
Excellent book!

Diary of a Sea Captain's Wife: Tales of Santa Cruz Island
Margaret H. Eaton
Manufacturer: McNally & Loftin Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 087461032X

Customer Reviews:

Subsistence lifestyle on a gorgeous California Island.......2006-08-31

Diary of a Sea Captains wife is a must-read for those who are familiar with the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. The narrator is Margaret, a Canadian woman who moves to California in the early 1900's to work in the burgeoning hotel industry in Santa Barbara. She marries, in 1902, a man who builds business fishing outside the Channel Islands. Margaret moves with her infant Vera to Santa Cruz Island where she keeps house in the open, living on vegetables they grow, fish they catch and the occasional wild boar. They move to a small cabin for the winter, but Margaret spends most of her time alone with her baby--at times the only person on the Island.

Throughout the 1920's her husband becomes involved in transporting illegal alcohol. They build enough capital to create a campsite for visitors. The burgeoning Hollywood film industry does many location shoots on the island and provides good income for Margaret and her family. Margaret meets stars such as John Barrymore and Gloria Swanson.

The adventures of this cheerful and energetic woman who loves the wilderness are homely yet interesting. The beauty and harshness of nature are highlighted in this story. The accounts of the backbreaking labor just to survive are awe-inspiring. At one point Margaret recounts hiking 2 miles round trip to gather wood--and makes 8 trips in one day! Despite the hardships, Margaret makes this solitary and hardy life very appealing. It makes one want to give up civilization and live in the wilderness!

One tough lady, and INCREDIBLE book!.......2000-06-01

I found this book while waiting to board a transport vessel to camp at Santa Cruz Island. Being an avid reader, I was immediately attracted to reading the story about a woman who literally camped her entire life on this island and developed a primitive resort that caught the attention of early Santa Barbara travelers and the early movie industry moguls. Ms Eaton wrote amusing stories of her life with her beloved sea captain husband. She never realized that when she married her husband, that she would leave so much history behind her. Her husband abandoned his safe lumber mill job after he built his first boat in the back yard of the tiny house. Before long, she abandoned life in Santa Barbara for a bed under the trees at Santa Cruz Island. At times it was just her and her daughter for days on end while her husband started a fishing and transport buisness bringing people out to the island where they fed and bunked them under the open sky. Never did she complain about her primitive conditions, actually she rejoiced in it's simplicity. I can not say I have ever met any one like her, she was an incredible woman, and the relationship she had with her husband and daughter is enviable. What a lovely book to read while hiking around Santa Cruz and knowing that not much has changed in the land now as it was then, thanks to park preservation. This is a story any one can enjoy whether you go to the island or not. I heartily recommend it.

One tough lady, and INCREDIBLE book!.......2000-06-01

Excellent book!.......1999-05-12

This is a heartwarming book about a woman who did it all! Especially interesting if you live in the area.

Average customer rating:

Great read
He knows the rig, but not the sailor. . .
A young Hemingway and the Sea!
Outstanding Novel
Could have been so much better . . .

The Captain's Wife: A Novel
Douglas Kelley
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0525946195
Release Date: 2001-08-23

Book Description

Mary's story begins in July 1856 in the heyday of the great clipper ships. Her husband, Captain Joshua Patten, is hired to navigate Neptune's Car on a treacherous voyage from New York to San Francisco-in record time.

The trip is marked by dark signs early on. The first mate shows traces of treason that soon erupt into a plot of mutiny. Upon reaching the equator, the captain falls ill. With no other choice, Mary takes command of the ship. Her command reigns throughout not only the most treacherous passage, Cape Horn, but during the most devastating weather in years. Having learned to navigate on a previous voyage with her husband, she now must utilize all her skills as she demands respect from an unstable crew, nurses her husband day and night, keeps the mutinous first mate at bay, and finds as she becomes a captain, she will also become a mother.

Doug Kelley has crafted a brilliant novel that uses the little-known facts about Mary Patten's life to tell a gripping tale of deception, danger, and treachery on the high seas. In a world of discovery, when adventurous sea captains ruled the seas, Mary Patten became much more than a captain's wife.

Customer Reviews:

Great read.......2007-05-12

Wonderfully written. You can quickly tell that much research was put into this book. I felt as if I was on the ship with the characters. Great story!

He knows the rig, but not the sailor. . ........2006-10-28

As a female topman on an actual 18th century square-rigged brig, The Lady Washington, I have to hand it to Mr. Kelley: He knows how square rigs work. I found myself reading along in my little forecastle bunk after a long day of hauling lines and thinking "Hey! That's actually right!" Beautifully Done! Mr. Kelley has written all the technical stuff in a manner that is accessible to people who have not sailed under squares, and the people who have.
I sure wish I could say the same for the writers of 'Pirates of the Carribean'.
What this book lacks, however, is substance of character, and in the world of tall ship sailing, the characters aboard are anything but one dimensional. Kelley's Mary seemed a bit too pure, Keeler a bit too malicious, and Joshua was the absolute fairytale captain that we all hear about in Patrick O' Brien novels but have never truly known. I couldn't help feeling that Kelly was holding them back from us, and that there had to be more to these characters then what he was presenting. Before the mast and below the decks there is no way that anyone living abaord any vessel can truly hide the complex substance of their character from their shipmates. Believe me. I've tried.

A young Hemingway and the Sea!.......2006-02-21

The Captain's Wife, by Douglas Kelly
ISBN 0-525-94619-5 (HC)
ISBN 0-452-28355.8 (pbc)
Copyright by Douglas Kelley 2001
Published by the Penguin Group (Plume)
First Plume Printing Sept 2002

BOOK REVIEW BY CAROLYN BRANCH LEONARD

The Captain's Wife is a wonderful historical novel of the sea and the 1850s period. This rousing, delightful story is based on a little known true story of teenage Mary Ann Patten who, in 1856, had to assume the role of Captain of a clipper ship when her husband became seriously ill. The author lives in the small town of Pocola, in land-locked eastern Oklahoma and, like a young Hemingway, is obviously in love with the sea.

Kelley's descriptive phrases were so powerful I had to get a blanket to stay warm while reading about the cold, wet journey.

"The dim figure in the bow was wet, but so was Mary. So was almost everyone on board. Her dress, once new and pretty, was now fit only for rags, but she saw no benefit in putting on anything else. Like the crewmen working before her, she would only be wet again. And cold ...."

She navigated the ship through treacherous waters and terrible storms in spite of a mutinous first mate, an illiterate second mate, and a ship full of rough sailors. While nursing her incoherent and almost comatose husband night and day, and assuming the necessary duties of captain, Mary learns she is pregnant and must keep this knowledge from the crew.

I tried to limit myself to one chapter a day so the book would last longer. Could not do it. The Captain's Wife is so well written, the suspense so well defined and the adventure so exciting -- I could not lay the book down until turning the final page -- while still wishing for one more chapter.

I recommended the book to my husband and he became spellbound for the next 48 hours as well.

Mr. Kelley did a fantastic job of weaving known facts in with the necessary fictionalization; it is seamless. I especially liked the way the author started the book with the highest suspense, then went back and unfolded the full story. The epilogue and author's notes at the end gave us a little more detail. His extensive research is obvious.

Outstanding Novel.......2005-06-18

The Captain's Wife is a novel that I did not want to end. It is one of the greatest stories of courage and the sea I have ever encountered. Doug Kelley did and amazing job of bringing an obscure historical figure to vivid life. His knowledge of 19th century clippers and sailing culture is very impressive. This is a must read for anyone intrigued by human endurance and courage. Don't pass up a chance to own and read The Captain's Wife.

Could have been so much better . . ........2005-04-09

I agree with a previous reviewer who wrote "I was particularly bothered by Douglas Kelley's attempt to portray her most intimate physical desires. Those paragraphs are out of place,."

My other problem with the book was in the editing. Not too far into the book, when Keeler comes aboard, he describes Hare standing next to Keeler and says something about the "second mate looked small next to the SECOND mate's bulk." HOW did that get past the editors? Also in the first couple of chapters, facts are unnecessarily repeated. It seems as if this was written as a serial, and readers needed to be brought up to date and reminded of the characters. It was disconcerting enough that I almost didn't read the rest.

But I did. And the story was quite enjoyable and entertaining. I bought the book in San Diego while visiting the HMS Rose and the Star of India. I could just imagine all the sails and riggings as I read.

What an amazing woman. Despite the editing troubles, Mr. Kelly does a good job of bringing Mary Patten's adventure to life.

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An Army Wife
Captain Charles King
Manufacturer: The Hobart Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HCL5FK

Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women and the Whalefishery, 1720-1870 (Gender and American Culture)

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Better then Sena Jeter

Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women and the Whalefishery, 1720-1870 (Gender and American Culture)
Lisa Norling
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Farmers & Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts, 1630-1850

ASIN: 0807848700
Release Date: 2000-09-27

Book Description

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the whaling industry in New England sent hundreds of ships and thousands of men to distant seas on voyages lasting up to five years. In Captain Ahab Had a Wife, Lisa Norling taps a rich vein of sources—including women's and men's letters and diaries, shipowners' records, Quaker meeting minutes and other church records, newspapers and magazines, censuses, and city directories—to reconstruct the lives of the "Cape Horn widows" left behind onshore.

Norling begins with the emergence of colonial whalefishery on the island of Nantucket and then follows the industry to mainland New Bedford in the nineteenth century, tracking the parallel shift from a patriarchal world to a more ambiguous Victorian culture of domesticity. Through the sea-wives' compelling and often poignant stories, Norling exposes the painful discrepancies between gender ideals and the reality of maritime life and documents the power of gender to shape both economic development and individual experience.

Customer Reviews:

Better then Sena Jeter.......2000-10-27

While Lisa Norling certaintly did not write a book to change our times, she has written the best Ahab's wife book we have. Our only other real chioce seems to be Sena Jeter, and she is not an exeptional writer of any magnitude. So when choosing between the two, Lisa is the way to go.

A Seafaring Legacy: The Photographs, Diaries, Letters, and Memorabilia of a Maine Sea Captain and His Wife, 1859-1908

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A Seafaring Legacy: The Photographs, Diaries, Letters, and Memorabilia of a Maine Sea Captain and His Wife, 1859-1908
Julianna Freehand
Manufacturer: Book Sales
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Campaigning With "Old Stonewall": Confederate Captain Ujanirtus Allen's Letters to His Wife

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Campaigning With "Old Stonewall": Confederate Captain Ujanirtus Allen's Letters to His Wife

Manufacturer: Louisiana State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0807122564

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The Army Wife
U.S.A. Captain Charles King
Manufacturer: F. Tennyson Neely
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SMZ2O4

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An Army Wife
Captain Charles King
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1432615866

Book Description

1896. Fully Illustrated. The literary novels of Charles King are ones of Victorian ideals, morals and views played out on western frontiers, the Civil War, and the Spanish Philippines. His often melodramatic stories are based on personal adventures and experiences with detailed observations and opinions arising from specific times and places. Publishing over 60 novels and numerous short stories, King was a popular author in his day, yet today is known mostly for one title, Campaigning With Crook. The book begins: There was more than one reason why Fanny McLane should not have accepted the Graftons' invitation to visit them at Fort Sedgwick. Perhaps that was why she never mentioned the matter to her sister, Mrs. Parry, until that lady surprised her in the midst of packing. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

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