This book devoted to the stories of heroines of the sea, by the master
of New England maritime lore, Edward Rowe Snow, was originally published
in 1962. Included in this collection are Hannah Burgess, who navigated
her husband's clipper ship safely to port after his death; His Kai
Ching, a widow who took command of her husband's pirate fleet; Mrs.
Jones, a Methodist missionary who was the sole survivor of the Maria,
wrecked off the coast of Antigua in 1826; Madame Desnoyer, who was cast
adrift with her two children and a servant off Santo Domingo in 1767,
after her husband had been murdered; and Alice Rowe Snow, the author's
own mother, who spent most of her first twenty years at sea aboard ships
commanded by her father.