Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History

For centuries the sea has been regarded as a male domain. Fisherman, navy officers, pirates, and explorers roamed the high seas while their wives and daughters stayed on shore. Oceangoing adventurers and the crews of their ships were part of an all-male world or were they?

In this illuminating historical narrative, maritime scholar David Cordingly shows that in fact an astonishing number of women went to sea in the great age of sail. Some traveled as the wives or mistresses of captains. A few were smuggled aboard by officers or seaman. A number of cases have come to light of young women dressing in mens clothes and working alongside the sailors for months, and sometimes years. In the U.S. and Britsh navies, it was not uncommon for the wives of bosuns, carpenters, and cooks to go to sea on warships. Cordinglys tremendous research shows that there was indeed a thriving female population from female pirates to the sirens of legend on and around the high seas. A landmark work of womens history disguised as a spectacularly entertaining yarn, Womens Sailors and Sailors Women will surprise and delight readers.