Amatuer astronomer Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised. Then she meets Isaac Martin, a young, dark-skinned whaler from the Azores who, like herself, has ambitions beyond his expected station in life. Drawn to his intellectual curiosity and honest manner, Hannah agrees to take Isaac on as a student. But when their shared interest in the...

The diary of a wife who, with their five-year old daughter, accompanied her husband on a three-and-a-half year whaling voyage.

A journalist draws on his immersive visits to the remote Indonesian island of the Lamalerans, the world's last subsistence whalers, to profile their way of life and illuminate how their indigenous culture is succumbing to the modern world.

Knowles' log provides a look at life on a whaling ship of the 19th century and of a young man visiting the sites of Europe.

Describes the whaling industry and its significance in America during the nineteenth century, and discusses crew members, working conditions, life for family members left ashore and those on board, and the end of whaling.