In June 1898, three years and two months after departing Boston in his
aged oyster sloop Spray, Captain Joshua Slocum made land fall in New
England and became the first person ever to sail alone around the world.
The voyage capped a lifetime of adventure for the indomitable Slocum,
who had advanced from seaman to captain during the challenging final
years of commercial sail, surviving hurricanes, mutinies, shipwreck, and
the death at sea of his beloved first wife, Virginia. Sailing Alone
Around the World, Slocum's book about his circumnavigation, is a
seafaring classic, unmatched for adventure and literary verve, and has
never been out of print since its publication in 1900. Yet despite
several biographies over the decades, Slocum the man has remained
unknowable to his legions of admirers, the facts of his life and career
as elusive as a ship on a fogbound sea. Here is the real story of
Slocum's Nova Scotia childhood, his seafaring career, and how he became
an American citizen. Grayson gives ample evidence of Slocum's uncanny
genius as a navigator while also noting the occasional role that good
luck played in his voyages, including his odyssey from Brazil to the
United States in the self-designed and built 35-foot Liberdade. And
Grayson brings a sailor's perspective to Slocum's solo circumnavigation
and mysterious disappearance at sea. A fascinating appendix compares
Sailing Alone Around the World with Thoreau's Walden and shows that
Slocum's simple lifestyle and self-sufficiency prefigured today's
emphases on the environment and living responsibly. Previously
unpublished photographs bring Slocum's world to life, and detailed maps
trace the adventures of a sailor who knew the world like the back of his
hand. This biography reads like an adventure narrative and will serve as
the standard work on Joshua Slocum for years to come.
