The historical basis of a Heinlein novel?

March 2, 2012 3:42 PM

Does anyone know any details about the real-life event in naval history that Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones is based on?

The introduction to my copy of Heinlein's Starman Jones claims that, according to Heinlein, the novel's plot was modeled after something that actually happened. The author of the introduction (William H. Patterson Jr.; this is the recent Baen ebook) quotes Heinlein as saying: "This book was written without an outline from a situation in the early 19th century. Two American teenagers took off in a sail boat, were picked up by a China Clipper, were gone two years—and returned to Boston with one of them in command. This incident is true and consequently preposterous. I came across this note card in a file and decided to try to make it plausible in terms of space travel—set up the situation and let the story write itself."

I am intrigued and wish to know more about this historical situation, but there are unfortunately not enough details for Google to turn up anything for me. So, MeFi naval historians, can you tell me more?

posted by sineala to Society & Culture (1 answer total)

IT's slightly reminiscent of the start of Edgar Allan Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (pub. 1838), but the boys are picked up off Nantucket, natch, by a whaler, which ends up wrecked at the South Pole, where Pym sees a luminous white ocean, and evidence of a Hollow Earth. Parts of this story were integrated into Lovecraft's south-polar horror story, "Into the Mountains of Madness."

The book is in the public domain though I recommend against a pure etext as there are sketched figures in the later parts of the book that aid the reader.

It's set on the wrong coast to be Heinlein's story but, I'd bet this sort of thing was in the nautical zeitgeist of the 19th century.
posted by Sunburnt at 6:18 PM on March 2, 2012