Two Years Before the Mast is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship starting in 1834.

Dana's brig was on a voyage to trade goods from the United States for the Mexican colonial Californian California missions' and ranchos' cow hides.

The provenance of this history is well supported by records showing the company of Sprague and James building and launching a brig named Pilgrim in 1825 in Medford, Massachusetts.

The headland bluffs near Mission San Juan Capistrano presented an obstacle to taking the cow hides to the beach for subsequent loading onto the ship.

He befriended Kanaka (native people of the Sandwich Islands—Hawaiian Islands) sailors in the ports, one of whose lives Dana would save when his captain would as soon see him die.

Of the return trip around Cape Horn, on his new ship the Alert, but with the same Captain Thompson, in the middle of the Antarctic winter, Dana gives the classic account.

There is another flogging by the captain, this time of the steward, for fighting and threatening to spill blood, but Dana seems to believe it was more justified than the previous incident in California.

In White-Jacket, Herman Melville wrote, "But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana's unmatchable Two Years Before the Mast.

Bryant again brought the manuscript to Harper's, hoping they would pay $500 to its author, though they ultimately paid Dana only $250 along with 24 complimentary copies.

[8] His unpolished, laconic style achieved a literary quality, however, that influenced novelist Herman Melville, according to American essayist Wright Morris.

During a part of this day we were hove to, but the rest of the time were driving on, under close-reefed sails, with a heavy sea, a strong gale, and frequent squalls of hail and snow.

(Melville, born in 1819, was exactly four years Dana's junior, and returned from his first tour as a seaman when Two Years Before the Mast was first published in 1840):[11] And there lay, floating in the ocean, several miles off, an immense, irregular mass, its top and points covered with snow, and its centre of a deep indigo color.... As far as the eye could reach, the sea in every direction was of a deep blue color, the waves running high and fresh, and sparkling in the light, and in the midst lay this immense mountain-island, its cavities and valleys thrown into deep shade, and its points and pinnacles glittering in the sun....But no description can give any idea of the strangeness, splendor, and, really, the sublimity, of the sight.

Its great size... its slow motion, as its base rose and sank in the water, and its high points nodded against the clouds; the dashing of the waves upon it, which, breaking high with foam, lined its base with a white crust; and the thundering sound of the cracking of the mass, and the breaking and tumbling down of huge pieces; together with its nearness and approach, which added a slight element of fear,—all combined to give to it the character of true sublimity.The following description of the English sailor, Bill Jackson, has literary similarities to Melville's Billy Budd:[12] He was tall; but you only perceived it when he was standing by the side of others, for the great breadth of his shoulders and chest made him appear but little above the middle height.

His cheeks were of a handsome brown; his teeth brilliantly white; and his hair, of a raven black, waved in loose curls all over his head, and fine, open forehead; and his eyes he might have sold to a duchess at the price of diamonds, for their brilliancy...Take him with his well-varnished black tarpaulin stuck upon the back of his head; his long locks coming down almost into his eyes; his white duck trousers and shirt; blue jacket; and black kerchief, tied loosely round his neck; and he was a fine specimen of manly beauty... His strength must have been great, and he had the sight of a vulture.