The Hard Way Around

In 1895 Joshua Slocum set sail from Gloucester Massachusetts in the Spray a thirty-seven-foot sloop. More than three years later he became the first man to circumnavigate the globe solo and his account of that voyage Sailing Alone Around the World made him internationally famous. But scandal soon followed and a decade later with his finances failing he set off alone once more—never to be seen again this definitive portrait of an icon of adventure Geoffrey Wolff describes with authority and admiration a life that would see hurricanes shipwrecks pirate attacks cholera smallpox and no shortage of personal tragedy.