The first edition of this book is dated 1859. The publisher was Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. The number of pages is 464.

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General information

This novel is written as a biography of a seaman, whose life at sea starts as an illiterate boy-seaman, and whose career spans the last twenty years of the eighteenth century and the first third of the nineteenth. We learn much of how ships were managed in those days, the press-gangs, the training, and the life of the common sailor in the fo’cstle. We experience the life aboard a man-of-war, a merchantman, a whaler, and even spend a few years ashore among the cannibals of the Feejee islands. There is a lot of meat in this book (not intended as a pun), and the reader will finish it with his or her eyes filled with wonderment. We now give the preface which Kingston himself wrote for the book.

Preface, by W.H.G. Kingston

I had more than once, in my rambles in the neighbourhood of Blackheath, Greenwich and Woolwich, met an old man walking briskly along, whose appearance struck me as unusual; but we never even exchanged salutations. One day, however, when I was in company with my friend Captain N— of the Navy, seeing the stranger, he stopped and addressed a few words to him, from which I gleaned that he had been a sailor. My friend told me, as we moved on, that he often had conversations on religious subjects with the old man, who had for long been in a South Sea whaler, and had seen many parts of the world. My interest was much excited. I took an early opportunity of making the acquaintance of Old Jack—for such, he told me, was the name by which he was best known; and without reluctance he gave me his history. This I now present to the public with certain emendations, with which I do not think my younger readers will find fault. W.H.G.K

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Contents

Chapter I.
Donnybrook Fair.

Chapter II.
The Bitters and Sweets of a Sea-Life.

Chapter III.
The West Indies.

Chapter IV.
The Return Home.

Chapter V.
The Planter’s House Besieged.

Chapter VI.
A Terrible Execution, and a Narrow Escape.

Chapter VII.
A Pirate Stronghold.

Chapter VIII.
Pirates in both Hemispheres.

Chapter IX.
A Ship without a Crew.

Chapter X.
The Water-Logged Ship.

Chapter XI.
Adventures in Morocco—Search for the Lost Captain.

Chapter XII.
The Salee Rover and the British Corvette.

Chapter XIII.
Jack a Man-of-War’s-Man.

Chapter XIV.
Tyranny—War and Mutiny, with a Glimpse of Home Comforts between.

Chapter XV.
Jack a Prisoner—A Privateer and a Slaver.

Chapter XVI.
Whaling in the South-Sea.

Chapter XVII.
Incidents of Whaling.

Chapter XVIII.
Whaling and Seal-Catching in the Icy Regions.

Chapter XIX.
A Visit to Java.

Chapter XX.
Strange Adventures and Naval Exploits.

Chapter XXI.
Batavia and the Feejee Islands.

Chapter XXII.
Life among the Savages—Jack’s Escape and Return Home.

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