His book, which was published in 1899 and first serialized in the Century Magazine, further earned him widespread fame. No less a reviewer of Slocum’s work than the noted poet and journalist Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, “I do not hesitate to call it the most extraordinary book ever published.” Slocum’s book is now considered by many to be a classic of travel literature. (The above image of the Spray in Australian waters was included in Sailing Alone Around the World. Nonetheless, Slocum and his epic voyage eventually did receive extensive news coverage and public acclaim. This was largely because the Spanish-American War, which had begun a couple of months earlier, was dominating the news at that time. His completion of the trip after more than three years, however, was greeted with very little if any fanfare.

In the course of his history-making adventure, Slocum ended up logging 46,000 miles (74,000 kilometers) altogether. The Canadian-born Slocum had first set sail in that vessel from Boston on April 25, 1895, for his trip across the globe. “I felt there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood,” he later recalled in his book Sailing Alone Around the World. In 1900 he wrote a book about his journey Sailing Alone Around the World, which became an international best-seller. He was a Nova Scotian born, naturalised American seaman and adventurer, and a noted writer. The epitome of Yankee independence, he had risen from a seaman to the captain of his own ship. when he sailed into the harbor at Newport, Rhode Island, on board his oyster sloop (a type of one-masted sailboat) named the Spray. Joshua Slocum was the first man to sail single-handedly around the world. Joshua Slocum, one of the most famous of American sea captains, really was the first to single-handedly circumnavigate the world. Joshua Slocum completed the first solo circumnavigation of the world at 1:00 a.m.

Slocum sail around the world