Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail

This is an outstanding non-fiction book so alive with detailed stories about women aboard ships that it reads like a novel. It discloses not only women's stories about long journeys, shipwrecks, and daily experiences on board, but how women served as navigators across seas around the world. A splendid source on 19th century sailing.

"Hen Frigates" is such a specific book, one can hardly imagine the time and research it must have taken to pull it all together. Ms. Druett has compiled list after list, diary excerpt after diary excerpt etc. to transport us into days past. Even though the time periods vary with the womens accounts, the stories all seem to ring the same. Each wife suffered through the same torments of life on the sea, but also in time relished with her husband. This is an interesting fact as husbands could sometimes be away for three years at a time with ittle or no contact home. By allowing the wives to share in the shipping/whaling experience, their marriage became all the stronger, or all the weaker in some cases. It is so easy for we in the 21st century to take advantage of all the amenities we use in everyday life, but the brave women portrayed lived as the sailors lived...sparsely. Raising children is difficult enough on land, but to do it on a ship sailing the seven seas, must have proved to be near impossible at times. All in all, a very interesting book on a forgotten subject.

Joan Druett has put together fascinating stories about women that set sail with their husbands. Not only have their trials and tribulations been recorded, but first hand accounts from diaries were beautifully interlaced among the stories. The illustrations are well done and I agree with other reviews in that it was a hard book to put down. The material was well researched and very easy to read.

Joan Druett's Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail is a delightful book. Profusely illustrated, this largely anecdotal account gives the sense of life at sea during the age of sail from the woman's perspective. Because, however, so much of the hardships of sail belonged to the whole crew, Dreutt does not limit her writing to the wives, although much of her point of view is taken from several journals and diaries of these intrepid women. This is not so much a work of interpretative history or argument as it is a collection of delightful yarns. I found Druett a very pleasant and amiable companion.

Well researched and packed with information - yet it reads like a novel. Very enjoyable. Give us more Joan Druett!