Women of the Sea

The women in Edward Rowe Snow's life -- his mother, his wife, and his daughter -- were all-important to him. So it's not surprising that the master of New England maritime lore dedicated an entire book to heroines of the deep.Ever since the beginning of time, women have played a far greater part in the lives of men, both ashore and at sea, than the average man cares to admit, wrote Snow in his introduction to the original 1962 edition of Women of the Sea. I have on hand a list of more than 600 items which show women out on the ocean at their best and at their worst.Included in this lively collection of tales are: Hannah Burgess, who navigated her husband's clipper ship safely to port after his deathHis Kai Ching, a widow who took command of her husband's pirate fleetMrs. Jones, a Methodist missionary who was the sole survivor of the Maria, wrecked off the coast of Antigua in 1826Madame Desnoyer, who was cast adrift with her two children and a servant off Santo Domingo in 1767, after her husband had been murderedAlice Rowe Snow, the author's own mother, who spent most of her first twenty years at sea aboard ships commanded by her fatherAs with the other Snow Centennial Editions, first issued in 2002 on the 100th anniversary of Snow's birth, Women of the Sea has been edited and updated by historian Jeremy D'Entremont. It features a foreword by Snow's daughter and only child, Dorothy Snow Bicknell.