The Annotated Sailing Alone Around the World
By Captain Joshua Slocum
Annotated by Rod Scher
224 pp. Line drawings, maps. May 2009. Paperback. $19.95
ISBN 978 1 57409 275 2
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Joshua Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World is a classic, beloved by sailors the world over who have enjoyed this engrossing tale of a man who sails around the world alone in a small wooden sailboat built with his own hands. This edition is thoroughly annotated by teacher/journalist Rod Scher, who provides explanation, commentary, and clarification that will make Slocum’s masterpiece more accessible to today’s readers—sailors and landlubbers alike. Scher has also added fascinating “In the News” sidebars throughout the text, which help bring to life the historical events surrounding the narrative.
"A literate and absorbing yarn published in 1900 and still in print. . . [Slocum’s] story is a convincing tale of the intelligence, skill and fortitude that drove a master navigator."
—New York Times
“A classic book. . . . Slocum’s writing is as elegant as his thirty-seven-foot sloop, SPRAY, whose crossing of the Atlantic he describes vividly.”
—New Yorker
“As a writer Slocum is given to plain understatement, dry wit, wry humor and Yankee observations about nature that led some to call him a ‘sea-locked Thoreau.’ . . . He offers descriptive glances at the sea, in storm or calm, that can rival those of Joseph Conrad.”
—Smithsonian
About the Authors:
Joshua Slocum was the first man to sail alone around the world. It was a feat that made him the “patron saint” of small boat sailors everywhere. His voyage, retold in Sailing Alone Around the World, took place from 1895 to 1898. It made Slocum and his little boat SPRAY forever famous.
Rod Scher received his M.Ed. from the University of Oregon. A longtime boating enthusiast, writer, and former English teacher, he is currently VP of Technology for Class.com, where he spends much of his time developing educational software while plotting ways to get back out on the water. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.