Category: C19

The Young Idea: A Naval Journal Edited on Board the H.M.S. Chesapeake in 1857, 1858 & 1859 is a weekly paper edited by A.D. McArthur (a clerk aboard the Chesapeake), circulated in manuscript to shipboard subscribers, and printed lithographically in London in 1867. I am preparing a scholarly edition of the entire run (58 issues) of this Victorian…

This is my favorite image of a shipboard theatrical. It documents a performance aboard the HMS Perseus as the ship was harbored in Yokohama Bay, Japan in September of 1863. I like it because it conjures the performance event more vividly than written records can. But we actually know far less about this production than others; Charles…

Two hours before the debut performance of the Niagara Amateurs, I was aloft on the foresail yard, sea stowing sail as our Captain steered Niagara through Presque Isle Bay (I’m third from the left). After 3 ½ weeks living and working on the ship, I had become fairly confident aloft. I was far less confident about our…

This post also appears at the Log Lines blog of the USS Constitution Museum website. Think not, you play-goers and lovers of the drama, although a wide waste of waters separates us from those shores where histrionic representations are cherished and admired as they ought to be by all classes, that the inmates of our…