Beadle's Dime Novels No. 158: The Blue Anchor

The Blue Anchor; or, The Lost Bride by Roger Starbuck is a maritime adventure novella. The ship Griffin encounters a sudden, catastrophic typhoon while sailing from the Sandwich Islands toward the East Indies. Among the passengers is Mrs. Brandon, wife of a whaling captain, traveling with her infant son Will and befriended by the young cabin-boy Harry Warlock. The typhoon destroys both lifeboats and the hastily-constructed raft carrying the crew. Mrs. Brandon and her child are lashed to a spar as the ship sinks, but become separated from the survivors and are presumed lost. Captain Brandon, learning of his wife and child's death, becomes a broken man, thereafter shunned by sailors who consider him a "Jonah"—a bearer of ill fortune at sea. Years pass; his remaining daughter Mary grows into a beautiful young woman of seventeen, his only solace, while financial hardship forces him into poverty.