Product Review

"Two Years Before the Mast" is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834. A film adaptation under the same name was released in 1946. In 1911, Dana's son, Richard Henry Dana III, added an introduction detailing the "subsequent story and fate of the vessels, and of some of the persons with whom the reader is made acquainted." With the onset of the 1849 California Gold Rush, Dana's book was one of the few books in existence that described California, adding greatly to the book's readership as well as Dana's renown and legacy. When he returned to San Francisco in 1859 he was treated as a minor celebrity. To this day the book is regarded as a valuable historical resource describing 1830s California.

The geographic headland he wrote of, and the adjacent city, are named Dana Point for him.

(this pre-1923 publication has been converted from its original publication