About the Authors
Herman Melville (1819–1891) was born in New York City. Family hardships forced him to leave school for various occupations, including shipping as a cabin boy to Liverpool in 1839—a voyage that sparked his love for the sea. A shrewd social critic and philosopher in his fiction, he is considered an outstanding writer of the sea and a great stylist who mastered both realistic narrative and a rich, rhythmical prose. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumously published novella Billy Budd.
John Vaillant is the author of acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books, including the bestsellers The Golden Spruce and The Tiger. His debut novel, The Jaguar’s Children, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. His many awards include the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Pearson Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, among others.
Jack London (1876–1916) was an American author, journalist, and
social activist. Before making a living at his writing, he spent time as an
oyster pirate, a sailor, a cannery worker, a gold miner, and a journalist. He
was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and
was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large
fortune from his fiction writing. He is best known for his novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set during the Klondike
gold rush, as well as the short stories “To Build a Fire,” “An Odyssey of the
North,” and “Love of Life.” He also
wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The
Heathen.” He was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the
rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics,
including The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes.
Nathaniel Philbrick is the National Book
Award–winning author of In the Heart of
the Sea, Revenge of the Whale, Sea of Glory, and others. Philbrick has
won numerous awards for his work, including the Massachusetts Book Award, the
Albion-Monroe Award, and the New England Book Award; his book Mayflower was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. His book The Last Stand was named an ALA Notable
Book and was the basis for a two-hour PBS American Experience film called Custer’s Last Stand. A graduate of Duke and Brown Universities, he currently lives in
New England.
Stephen Crane (1871–1900) was an American novelist, poet, and journalist. He worked as a reporter of slum life in New York and a highly paid war correspondent for newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. He wrote many works of fiction, poems, and accounts of war, all well received but none as acclaimed as his 1895 Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage. Today he is considered one of the most innovative American writers of the 1890s and one of the founders of literary realism.
Sebastian Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of several books. Together with Tim Hetherington, he directed the documentary Restrepo, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was born in Scotland. He studied engineering and law at the University of Edinburgh and then began writing while traveling in France. The publication of Treasure Island in 1883 brought him fame and entered him on a course of romantic fiction beloved by young and old alike.
John Muir (1838–1914), Scottish-born American naturalist, was one of the most influential conservationists and nature writers in American history. Founder of the Sierra Club and its president until his death, he was instrumental in helping to save wilderness areas, including Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park. He was a spirit so free that all he did to prepare for an expedition was to “throw some tea and bread into an old sack and jump the back fence.”
Philip Ashton, a man from Massachusetts, survived as a castaway on an island for sixteen months before being rescued by a ship from New England.
Rick Bass is an American author of numerous award-winning works of fiction and nonfiction. His memoir Why I Came West was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His short fiction, which has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Esquire, and the Paris Review, as well as numerous times in Best American Short Stories, has earned him multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes as well as NEA and Guggenheim fellowships. He was born and raised in Texas, worked as a petroleum geologist in Mississippi, and has lived in Montana’s Yaak Valley for almost three decades.
Sebastian Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of several books. Together with Tim Hetherington, he directed the documentary Restrepo, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism.
Herman Melville (1819–1891) was born in New York City. Family hardships forced him to leave school for various occupations, including shipping as a cabin boy to Liverpool in 1839—a voyage that sparked his love for the sea. A shrewd social critic and philosopher in his fiction, he is considered an outstanding writer of the sea and a great stylist who mastered both realistic narrative and a rich, rhythmical prose. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumously published novella Billy Budd.
Farley Mowat is a Canadian author and
environmentalist. His works have been translated into fifty-two languages and
he has sold more than seventeen million books. He achieved fame with the
publication of his books on the Canadian North, such as People of the Deer
and Never Cry Wolf. The latter, an account of his experiences with
wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film, and was released in 1983.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.
About the Narrators
Barrett Whitener has been narrating audiobooks since 1992. His recordings have won several awards, including the prestigious Audie Award and numerous Earphones Awards. AudioFile magazine has named him one of the Best Voices of the Century.
Colleen Delany has
been a sparkling jewel in the crown of Washington’s vastly talented acting
community for thirty-seven days now and will confidently challenge to a fierce
best out of three in “paper-rock-scissors” anyone wishing to topple her from
that lofty perch. Primarily a stage actress,—having played roles at Shakespeare
Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Folger
Shakespeare Library, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theater J,
Washington Stage Guild, Theater of the First Amendment, and Source Theatre,
among others—Ms. Delany does a you-name-it of various acting jobs, including
audiobook narration.
Herman Melville (1819–1891) was born in New York City. Family hardships forced him to leave school for various occupations, including shipping as a cabin boy to Liverpool in 1839—a voyage that sparked his love for the sea. A shrewd social critic and philosopher in his fiction, he is considered an outstanding writer of the sea and a great stylist who mastered both realistic narrative and a rich, rhythmical prose. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumously published novella Billy Budd.
Richard Rohan is a stage, film, and voice-over actor who has narrated hundreds of audiobooks over the last decade, in every genre. He is particularly proud of his work as director and performer on the acclaimed Space Fantasy audio drama series Deathstalker.
George Guidall, winner of more than eighty AudioFile Earphones Awards, has won three of the prestigious Audie Award for Excellence in Audiobook Narration. In 2014 the Audio Publishers Association presented him with the Special Achievement Award for lifetime achievement/ During his thirty-year recording career he has recorded over 1,700 audiobooks, won multiple awards, been a mentor to many narrators, and shown by example the potential of fine storytelling. His forty-year acting career includes starring roles on Broadway, an Obie Award for best performance off Broadway, and frequent television appearances.