Around Cape Horn: A Maritime Artist/Historian's Account of His 1892 Voyage 

Charles Gerard Davis was one of the world’s leading maritime model builders; his ship models are now rarely found outside of museums. During the first half of the 20th century, he was also acclaimed as an artist, historian, and author. Around Cape Horn is his recollection of one of his first adventures at sea: sailing out of New York in 1892 on a voyage around Cape Horn, aboard the bark James A. Wright.

At the age of 22, Davis’s doctor advised him to go to sea, to affect a cure for his failing eyesight. During his nearly year-long voyage, he kept a journal of his experiences, and this exciting and honest narrative is based on that journal. Davis’s account is a well-told tale of the fulfillment of a young man’s yearning to go to sea, and his writing reveals his boyish wonder, as well as the harsh reality of life at sea during the last years of sail.

Reviews
"We are blessed to have Charles G. Davis’s Around Cape Horn, a gripping and insightful work. is an important book, one of the finest glimpses of late 19th-century seafaring that I have ever read. As exciting as any novel, with characters as fleshed out and real as any writer could wish, I could not put this book down." --James L. Nelson, author of the Revolution at Sea and Bretheren of the Coast series

"Neal Parker’s deft editorial skills have made Around Cape Horn informative, engaging and very highly recommended reading for contemporary students and enthusiasts of American Nautical History." -- The Midwest Book Review

"Parker has done a real service to reading sailors, whether of the active or armchair variety." -- Working Waterfront/ Inter-Island News. To read the complete review, click here.

"The masterful little sketches at the chapter headings zoom to the heart of the action- sailors at work." -- Sea History

"This memoir is an eye-opening account of a sailor’s dangerous and hard life." -- Kennebec Journal