A literate and absorbing yarn published in 1900 and still in print... His story is a convincing tale of the intelligence, skill and fortitude that drove a master navigator.

– The New York Times

A classic book... Slocum's writing is as elegant as his thirty-seven-foot sloop, SPRAY, whose crossing of the Atlantic he describes vividly.

– The New Yorker

As a writer Slocum is given to plain understatement, dry wit, wry humor and Yankee observations about nature that led some to call him a sea-locked Thoreau. ... he offers descriptive glances at the sea, in storm or calm, that can rival those of Joseph Conrad.

– Smithsonian

Captain Slocum's place in history is as secure as Adams's. So long as men sailed the seas they will be interested in that first single-handed circumnavigation and will wish to read the book....There is not one single moment at which the ancient mariner is in danger of losing the attention of his audience. And this is true not only of the first, but, as I well know, of the twentieth or maybe thirtieth time of reading.

– Arthur Ransome