"Those who live near the sea, feed more on fish than on flesh, and often encounter that boisterous element. This renders them more bold and enterprising; this leads them to neglect the confined occupations of the land. They see and converse with a variety of people; their intercourse with mankind becomes extensive. The sea inspires them with a love of traffic, a desire of transporting produce from one place to another . . ." --Crevecoeur.

FROM a narrow, blue sea-chest stuffed with maps, tall log-books, cash-books, account-books, diaries, and musty bills of lading. Robert Coffin has gleaned much of the material for his true tale of the voyages of Captain John Pennell and wife, Abby, of Casco Bay, Maine. From these documents he has constructed a simple New England odyssey of a Down-East family who made their home upon the sea and whose travels in a tall-masted clipper took them to every corner of a world which was much broader in 1840 than it is today.

Coffin writes in prose, leaving his natural poetic element to tell of a Maine man and his wife who "flourished in a time when being a Maine coast citizen meant being a citizen of the world." He relates how the couple spent the years of their wedded life continuously on the ocean: how their boys were born, raised, and schooled there; and how one was born and died there and was shipped home for burial. He draws a picture of a breed of American which belied its appearance and tradition of provincial simplicity by entering ports from Java to Cape Horn during a life of ocean travel. The Captains Pennell qualify the early 19th century Maine navigator as one of the greatest cosmopolites in American history.

Those who admire Coffin poetry may be disappointed in his most recent prose attempt, for the chronicle of the Pennells is almost strictly a narrative with little room left for the author's creative talent. What poetic expressions there are occur only in small snatches. The book is a diary which relies on simplicity and authenticity for its effect.

It is refreshingly written, possibly a little Sitwellian in general tone, but the appealing and romantic picture of the characters makes up for any literary license on Coffin's part. The author's quaint poeticizing fits the Pennells better than more modern treatment. As a brand of extinct Americans they look more realistic in daguerreotype.