Beadle's Pocket Library No. 369: Captain Blake's Jonah

Captain Blake's Jonah; or, Harry, the Cabin Boy

By Roger Starbuck. A maritime adventure serialized in this 1891 Beadle and Adams weekly. The opening chapters present a shipwreck narrative: the New Bedford whaler Griffin, carrying passenger Mrs. Brandon and her infant son, encounters a sudden typhoon in the Japan Sea. The ship founders; lifeboats are destroyed or separated. Young cabin-boy Harry Warlock, age ten, displays remarkable courage during the disaster. Mrs. Brandon and her child are lost; Captain Blake and Harry are rescued separately. Years later, Brandon—now a captain himself but cursed with the reputation of being a "Jonah" (bringing misfortune to any vessel)—encounters Blake commanding the Albatross. Harry, now a mature first mate, has risen from cabin-boy. Blake hesitantly agrees to hire the ill-fated Brandon only if his daughter Mary accompanies him to neutralize the superstitious crew's belief in his jinx. The narrative balances maritime detail with melodramatic emotional arcs and period seafaring superstition.