Beadle's New Dime Novels: Foul-Weather Jack

About this issue

This issue contains Foul-Weather Jack; or, The Double Wreck by Roger Starbuck, a maritime adventure novella. The story opens in June 1819 off the Chilean coast, where Captain John Wandel commands the whaling ship Japan. Wandel, a large, pale-skinned man with a reputation for both excellent seamanship and extraordinary bad luck (having survived six wrecks), anticipates an approaching storm. When Third Officer Grill makes an ill-considered joke about Wandel's ghostly appearance, the captain erupts in violence, throwing Grill to the deck. Ruth, the captain's eighteen-year-old daughter aboard for a voyage to Hawaii, pleads for mercy. Shortly after, a whale is spotted, and Wandel pursues it in a boat while other mates initially follow a different direction. Wandel's superior judgment proves correct—he successfully harpoons the whale while it drags his boat toward a distant vessel.