“No swellings tell that winds may be upon some far-off happier sea- No heavings hint that winds have been on seas less hideously serene.” — Edgar Allan Poe, “The City in the Sea” Rare Books invites you to view its most recent virtual lecture, "A Drop in the Ocean." Learn...

“At two P.M we set sail, and the men voluntarily launched out to make a traverse of fifteen miles across Melville Sound, before a strong wind and heavy sea. The privation of food, under which our voyagers were then laboring, absorbed every other terror; otherwise...