The Captain's Best Mate: The Journal of Mary Chipman Lawrence on the Whaler Addison, 1856-1860 Edited by Stanton Garner is a 311-page softcover published by Brown University Press by University Press of New England, 1966. The pages are tightly bound to the spine and unmarked; however the book has significant dampstaining, as if it was read...on a boat!
"Mary Chipman Lawrence wasn't the first wife who ever accompanied her husband on a whaling voyage, nor was she the last, but I doubt if any woman ever wrote a diary of her voyage in better style or more interestingly...she had an alert mind, she was a very vital person, she was a keen observer, and she wrote remarkably well..Altogether the book makes fascinating reading, easily the best book of its kind I've ever encountered."
--Bradford Swan, Providence Journal
"A fascinating journal. The excitement of the good catch, the despair of the empty oceans, the dangers of storm and ice and violence, the joy of the 'gam' when New England captains and their wives would meet in strange waters and sit together to exchange old newspapers and old letters and jars of jelly--these were caught clearly and expressively...it is a book to make New Englanders proud of their heritage."
--William Schofield, Boston Sunday Herald
ISBN: 0-87451-366-9
