Just finished Two Years Before the Mast for the second time, and I’m hoping to find some similar accounts of daily life from long in the past. Not specifically about sailing – I’d love to have some good accounts of life on land as well, especially from the pre-electric eras.
Any well-written books/accounts that anyone could suggest?
Edit – specifically looking for non-fiction, as the tag suggests
Edit 2 – bonus points if available on Audible
by ardvarkk
5 Comments
Jack London’s Martin Eden is full of wonderful historical detail, and Eden interacts with people from different classes as well. Frank Norris’ McTeague and especially Vandover and the Brute are great fiction books to go deeply into daily life – Vandover is a prissy young man in economic freefall, so it’s got a lot on the everyday life of someone of his class who aspires to be a painter and then it follows him down.
ER Chamberlin has two books, EVERYDAY LIFE IN RENAISSANCE TIMES and EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. sounds like they’re kind of what you’re looking for.
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
I love this sort of non-fiction
Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus – Memoirs of a highland lady. Available online
https://archive.org/details/memoirsofhighlan00graniala
The diary of Lady Margaret Hoby – life of a puritan elizabethan lady
Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals
I don’t know if this is something that would interest you but Ian Mortimer’s The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England and The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England are nonfiction and enjoyable reads about life in these times. I believe the Medieval England book is in Audible but not the Elizabethan England. I borrowed the books (epub) from my library. I hope you find what you are seeking!