Edouard A. Stackpole was an American author and descendant of a family of whalers. Born in Nantucket, Massachusetts

Nantucket, Massachusetts

Nantucket is an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the United States. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the coterminous Nantucket County, which are consolidated. Part of the town is designated the Nantucket...

, he graduated from Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts

West Roxbury, Massachusetts

West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston bordered by Roslindale to the north, the Town of Dedham to the east and south, the Town of Brookline and the City of Newton to the west. Many people mistakenly confuse West Roxbury with Roxbury, but the two are not connected. West Roxbury is separated from...

. He worked for several years as a printer, reporter and editor at newspapers in Nantucket.

Stackpole was curator of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut

Mystic, Connecticut

Mystic is a village and census-designated place in New London County, Connecticut, in the United States. The population was 4,001 at the 2000 census. A historic locality, Mystic has no independent government because it is not a legally recognized municipality in the state of Connecticut...

., from 1951 to 1966. He published 28 books and monographs, largely about whaling and the history of Nantucket.

In a review of the book in The New York Times, Orville Prescott wrote, "Everything about whaling that Herman Melville couldn't cram into 'Moby-Dick' is now crammed into 'The Sea Hunters.' "