Articles

• “My Yale College and My Harvard”: The Writing of Herman Melville’s Sea Works
  “A whaleship was my Yale college and my Harvard,” Herman Melville writes in Moby-Dick (ch. 24). Of course, it wasn’t...More Read more from “My Yale College and My Harvard”: The Writing of Herman Melville’s Sea Works
• A Fine, Boisterous Something”: Nantucket in Moby-Dick
  For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nanrucket craft, because there was a fine,...More Read more from A Fine, Boisterous Something”: Nantucket in Moby-Dick
• Moby-Dick and Nantucket’s Moby-Dick: The Attack on the Essex
  Like many another Nantucket story, the sinking of the Nantucket whaleship Essex would probably have enjoyed some enduring popularity even...More Read more from Moby-Dick and Nantucket’s Moby-Dick: The Attack on the Essex
• Herman Melville: Nantucket’s First Tourist?
  Sometime near sunset on Tuesday, 6 July 1852, the sidewheel steamer Massachu­setts churned into Nantucket harbor. Stand­ing on her deck...More Read more from Herman Melville: Nantucket’s First Tourist?
• The Earliest Picture of the Essex Disaster
    The gruesome fate of the Nantucket whaleship Essex forms the core of the most dramatic episode in American whaling....More Read more from The Earliest Picture of the Essex Disaster
• Lost and Found in Papahanaumokuakea Marine Nantucket Monument: The Possible Wreck Site of the Nantucket Whaleship Two Brothers
  Many are familiar with the fate of the Nantucket whaleship Essex, stove by a whale in the Pacific Ocean and...More Read more from Lost and Found in Papahanaumokuakea Marine Nantucket Monument: The Possible Wreck Site of the Nantucket Whaleship Two Brothers
• Thomas Nickerson’s Account of the Wreck of the Two Brothers
  After surviving the harrowing ordeal of the whaleship Essex, Captain George Pollard Jr. returned to Nantucket aboard the whaleship Two...More Read more from Thomas Nickerson’s Account of the Wreck of the Two Brothers
• A Sounding Lead on a Distant Reef, Captain Pollard’s Lessons Learned
  One of the more ironic and emotionally charged artifacts to be discovered at a shipwreck site is a sounding lead,...More Read more from A Sounding Lead on a Distant Reef, Captain Pollard’s Lessons Learned
• Of Melville, Tortoises, and the Galapagos
  The Galápagos Islands were a world ravaged by whalemen. One such whaleman was Herman Melville, who wrote of the islands...More Read more from Of Melville, Tortoises, and the Galapagos
• All Research is a Kind of Time Travel
  I wrote In the Heart of the Sea during the fall, winter, and spring of 1998–99. The sperm-whale skeleton that...More Read more from All Research is a Kind of Time Travel
• Reconstructing the Essex
  In 2011, because no accurate model of one of Nantucket’s most famous whaleships was on display for visitors to the...More Read more from Reconstructing the Essex
• At What Cost? Mariners Lost at Sea
  Only Ishmael survived the voyage of the Pequod, his shipmates perishing from Ahab’s maniacal pursuit of the white whale. To...More Read more from At What Cost? Mariners Lost at Sea
• Shipwrecks
  Shipwrecks sometimes ruined whaling careers. For George Pollard, Nantucket whaler and captain of the Essex, the proverbial lightning struck twice....More Read more from Shipwrecks
• Cannibalism and “Custom of the Sea”
  Life at sea occasionally ended in tragedy. When vessels foundered in the age of sail, and crews found themselves in...More Read more from Cannibalism and “Custom of the Sea”