Details: By: Marilyn Clay; AOS Other Non-Fiction

18th - 19th Century Women at Sea is a lively and entertaining account of the three types of women one would normally find, legally or illegally, on board a ship during this time period—prostitutes, officer's and midshipmen's wives and other female passengers during wartime, and women masquerading as sailors or crewmen. Colorful but true and factual accounts of surprising and certainly, little-known, incidents are drawn from letters written by sailors and other men at sea, from diaries of such figures as Admiral Horatio Nelson, and from autobiographies written in the late 1700s by women, such as Mary Lacy, who took to the sea masquerading as men and lived to tell of their experiences. Noted historians who have published works on the same subject are quoted and referenced. For further study, a list of bibliographical sources is included.