{"title":"Hester Blum","description":"\u003cp\u003eDive into the intriguing works of Hester Blum, exploring themes of maritime literature, transatlantic studies, and 19th-century American culture. A captivating journey for those seeking unique perspectives and historical depth.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"news-at-the-ends-of-the-earth-book-hester-blum-9781478003878","title":"The News at the Ends of the Earth","description":"From Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 search for the Northwest Passage to early twentieth-century sprints to the South Pole, polar expeditions produced an extravagant archive of documents that are as varied as they are engaging. As the polar ice sheets melt, fragments of this archive are newly emergent. In The News at the Ends of the Earth Hester Blum examines the rich, offbeat collection of printed ephemera created by polar explorers. Ranging from ship newspapers and messages left in bottles to menus and playbills, polar writing reveals the seamen wrestling with questions of time, space, community, and the environment. Whether chronicling weather patterns or satirically reporting on penguin mischief, this writing provided expedition members with a set of practices to help them survive the perpetual darkness and harshness of polar winters. The extreme climates these explorers experienced is continuous with climate change today. Polar exploration writing, Blum contends, offers strategies for confronting and reckoning with the extreme environment of the present.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49526658695441,"sku":"GOR012905241","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49733095227665,"sku":"NGR9781478003878","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50376429338897,"sku":"CIN1478003871VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51028525908241,"sku":"NIN9781478003878","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1478003871.jpg?v=1763481032"},{"product_id":"view-from-the-masthead-book-hester-blum-9780807858554","title":"The View from the Masthead","description":"With long, solitary periods at sea, far from literary and cultural centers, sailors comprise a remarkable population of readers and writers. Although their contributions have been little recognized in literary history, seamen were important figures in the nineteenth-century American literary sphere. In the first book to explore their unique contribution to literary culture, Hester Blum examines the first-person narratives of working sailors, from little-known sea tales to more famous works by Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, and Richard Henry Dana.In their narratives, sailors wrote about how their working lives coexisted with - indeed, mutually drove - their imaginative lives. Even at leisure, they were always on the job site. Blum analyzes seamen's libraries, Barbary captivity narratives, naval memoirs, writings about the Galapagos Islands, Melville's sea vision, and the crisis of death and burial at sea. She argues that the extent of sailors' literacy and the range of their reading were unusual for a laboring class, belying the popular image of Jack Tar as merely a swaggering, profane, or marginal figure. As Blum demonstrates, seamen's narratives propose a method for aligning labor and contemplation that has broader applications for the study of American literature and history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49911130489105,"sku":"CIN0807858552G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52614208356625,"sku":"NLS9780807858554","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52740218585361,"sku":"NIN9780807858554","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807858552.jpg?v=1753002015"},{"product_id":"horrors-of-slavery-book-hester-blum-9780813544137","title":"Horrors of Slavery","description":"Barbary pirates in Africa targeted sailors for centuries, often taking slaves and demanding ransom in exchange. First published in 1808, Horrors of Slavery is the tale of one such sailor, captured during the United States's first military encounter with the Islamic world, the Tripolitan War. William Ray, along with three hundred crewmates, spent nineteen months in captivity after his ship, the Philadelphia, ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli. Imprisoned, Ray witnessed-and chronicled-many of the key moments of the military engagement. In addition to offering a compelling history of a little-known war, this book presents the valuable perspective of an ordinary seaman who was as concerned with the injustices of the U.S. Navy as he was with Barbary pirates.Hester Blum's introduction situates Horrors of Slavery in its literary, historical, and political contexts, bringing to light a crucial episode in the early history of our country's relations with Islamic states.  A volume in the Subterranean Lives series, edited by Bradford Verter","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50369298301201,"sku":"CIN0813544130VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52140243976465,"sku":"NLS9780813544137","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0813544130.jpg?v=1761387665"},{"product_id":"view-from-the-masthead-book-hester-blum-9780807831694","title":"The View from the Masthead","description":"With long, solitary periods at sea, far from literary and cultural centers, sailors comprise a remarkable population of readers and writers. Although their contributions have been little recognized in literary history, seamen were important figures in the nineteenth-century American literary sphere. 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As Blum demonstrates, seamen's narratives propose a method for aligning labor and contemplation that has broader applications for the study of American literature and history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50607337275665,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50607337373969,"sku":"GOR010196538","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807858552_2c939bf1-e0d1-43c9-b0d6-f2b57a801eb8.jpg?v=1761990481"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-hester-blum.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}