DOWN TO THE SEA AND AROUND THE WORLD In the current wave of seafaring literature, no fictional sailor's story can match this true, real life adventure. With Charles Tyng's Before the Wind we roam the world of the early nineteenth century: visit Lord Byron in Italy, King Tamehameha in Hawaii, and skirt Napoleon's prison isle of St. Helena. We learn to siphon rum from the captain's cask, relive the historic battle of The Bulwark and The Chesapeake, and witness an encounter with a mermaid. Armchair travelers will long to run away to se with Before the Wind. “There is something natural and immediate about Tyng's writing. He seems like what he calls a good man. For anyone who had a childhood fantasy of shipping out for a distant voyage on a 19th-century commercial sailing vessel, this is your chance. "