Written during the explosion of Cooper's naval prose in the early 1840s, ""Ned Myers; or, a Life before the Mast"" (1843) celebrates the maritime career of a Nova Scotia runaway turned Yankee sailor. In the voice of Myers himself - a genuine historic personage present at several important episodes of American naval history - Cooper interweaves his own vision of the growth of the early navy and life at sea with the dictated recollections of the 'old salt'. As an experiment in prose, ""Ned Myers"" led Cooper to the fictional narrators of Afloat and Ashore (1844).

Introduction by: William S. Dudley, Hugh Egan