Spunyarn: Sea Poetry and Prose (Penguin Classics)

John Masefield is one of the greatest storytellers of life at sea. Based on a recently rediscovered early manuscript, this collection of short stories, extracts from novels, autobiographical sketches, and poems, including the well-known works "Sea-Fever" and "Cargoes," illustrates the hardship, romance, and adventure of seafaring. Masefield's writing, masterful and captivating, is infused with a sailor's way with language and sense for a good yarn-about life in dock and on the swelling seas, about salt spray, mutiny, great storms, the spirits beneath the waves, and the devil and Davy Jones playing dice for souls.