author

George Jones

1800–1870

A naval chaplain, teacher, and travel writer, he helped introduce generations of mid-19th-century readers to life at sea and to the dramatic opening of Japan to the West. His books blend firsthand observation with the curiosity of a scholar and the eye of a storyteller.

1 Audiobook

Excursions to Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Balbec From the United States Ship Delaware, During Her Recent Cruise With an Attempt to Discriminate Between Truth and Error in Regard to the Sacred Places of the Holy City

Excursions to Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Balbec From the United States Ship Delaware, During Her Recent Cruise With an Attempt to Discriminate Between Truth and Error in Regard to the Sacred Places of the Holy City

by George Jones

About the author

Born in 1800, he was an Episcopal minister who also built a long career in the United States Navy. Reliable sources describe him as a chaplain, academic, and writer, and note that he became the first chaplain and head of English studies at the United States Naval Academy.

He is especially remembered for joining Commodore Matthew Perry's 1852–1854 expedition to Japan, a major diplomatic mission in American history. His published work includes a narrative of that expedition as well as other books drawn from travel and naval life, showing how closely his writing grew out of firsthand experience.

Listings of his works also show a wide range of interests, from biblical subjects to observation and travel. Taken together, they suggest an author who wrote to inform as much as to entertain, bringing distant places and important events within reach of ordinary readers.