The New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts will release “Around the World in Search of Whales: A Journey of the Lucy Ann Voyage” on Friday.
The hard-bound non-fiction book recounts a 31-month whaling voyage aboard the whaleship Lucy Ann (1841-44).
The museum said the book presents, in its entirety, the personal account and illustrations of whaleman-artist John F. Martin, edited by Kenneth R. Martin. The museum said John F. Martin was at sea during the cultural heyday of American whaling.
A book launch will be held Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the museum. The event is free and open to the public. The book can be purchased at the White Whale, the museum’s gift store, or online.
The museum said Martin’s journal is considered a masterpiece of its genre. Thirty-one months of daily entries are vibrantly and sometimes comically detailed. It is richly illustrated with elegant, vivid watercolors large and small: whales, whaling encounters, ships and boats, sea creatures, distant landfalls, and exotic strangers.
The detailed account of life aboard Lucy Ann includes dangerous encounters, shipboard shenanigans, faraway ports, good times, bad food, close scrapes and dashed hopes, the museum said.
