author
William Hussey Macy
1826–1891
A Nantucket sea captain turned his years in the whaling trade into vivid adventure stories, bringing readers close to life aboard ship in the great age of American whaling. His fiction and sketches draw on firsthand experience and a sharp eye for the dangers, routines, and odd dramas of the sea.
1 Audiobook
There She Blows! Or, The Log of the Arethusa
by William Hussey Macy
About the author
Born in 1826 and associated closely with Nantucket, William Hussey Macy was an American mariner and writer best known for sea stories shaped by his own whaling experience. He often published as Captain W. H. Macy, and his work blends practical knowledge of ships and voyages with an easy, story-driven style.
His best-known book is There She Blows! Or, The Log of the Arethusa, and he also wrote many shorter pieces about whaling, storms, shipboard conflicts, and far-ranging voyages. Again and again, his writing returns to the working world of sailors rather than a romantic fantasy of the sea, which gives it a lively, grounded feeling.
Macy died in 1891. Today he is remembered as one of the writers who preserved Nantucket's maritime culture in narrative form, especially the voices, risks, and everyday texture of nineteenth-century whaling life.