Sailing Alone Around the World (Adventurers in Their Own Words)

In 1898, Captain Joshua Slocum completed a journey which, common as such things are today, was met at the time by almost universal disbelief: He sailed around the world by himself. At ports along the way, he was greeted with skepticism — and often fear. He even took the remarkable step of having his sloop, the Spray, fumigated before leaving for the final leg of his journey, to show that no other living person could possibly be on board.

This book is a recounting of that journey, told in Slocum’s own words. When I first read Slocum’s Sailing Alone Around the World several years ago, I was entranced and enchanted by his story, which can be downloaded for free at several sites online.

Unfortunately, I also found the story difficult to follow at times, primarily because the free online editions usually omitted the illustrations, including very helpful maps of the journey! Some editions do include the illustrations, but they are such low-quality reproductions that they are nearly unusable.

There were also quite a few instances where jargon and prose style dating from the 1890s made reading this otherwise-fascinating story a bit of a chore.
This edition solves both of those problems by including the missing maps and illustrations in a high-quality format, and by a careful edit that preserves 95 percent of Slocum’s words, but streamlines the prose and terminology for the modern reader. I have also added some modern photos and a new map of Australia to replace the illegible map from the original version of the book.

The result, I hope, is that this book will read like the rip-roaring yarn it was when first published over 100 years ago. Of course, if you’d prefer, you can always download a free copy of the book, but I think that this reasonably-priced electronic version will, for most readers, make reading this classic work a much more enjoyable experience.