Please note: 
The books are listed for interest only, and not offered for sale. 

The following details from website of Steve Holland, in turn contributed by Jamie Sturgeon: http://bearalley.blogspot.com/2009/12/david-masters.html The US Catalog of Copyright Entries reveals that David Masters was the pen-name of C. E. Brand. This, coupled with the known birth year of "David Masters", 1883, leads us to Charles Edwin Brand, born in Marylebone, London, on 20 January 1883, the son of William John Brand (a greengrocer) and his wife Ada (nee Upson), who had married in 1875. William John Brand died in 1889 at the age of 37, whilst Charles was still only eight, and his mother raised the family of three sons and one daughter, running a newsagent with the assistance of her sister, Emma Jane Upson. Ada Brand also died young, at the age of 39, in 1895. And the children were then raised by Aunt Emma. At the time of the 1901 census, Charles Brand was working as a grocer's assistant in Putney. He is next spotted applying for a patent on what he described as combination gardening tools. Brand, a journalist then living at Clovelly, Hadley, Barnet, Hertfordshire, had created a tool consisting of a metal plate, one side of which was formed as a rake, a second as a Dutch hoe, the third an ordinary hoe and the fourth a drill-maker or clod-chopper; the plate had a central socket so that a handle could be attached. The patent was published on 6 June 1918. One of his books noted that he was a salvage expert and hard hat diver who worked upon the sunken German fleet at Scapa Flow. Although I know nothing of his journalistic career, as David Masters he was a contributor to Wide-World Magazine, Conquest, Saturday Evening Post, Traveller's Pack and Pictorial Magazine. Charles Edwin Brand was living at 10 Belsize Park, Hampstead, London N.W.3, where he died on 24 May 1965, aged 82.

CRIMES OF THE HIGH SEAS Published by Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1936.  Hardcover, dust jackt, 280 pages, mono plates. From the cover blurb: This is the most exciting and original of all Mr. David Masters' famous books of sea adventure. Based on exhaustive research at Lloyd's, it lifts the veil from a sensational series of plots and crimes, carried out in every case with the intention of defrauding the underwriters.  This is the first book to describe in detail some of the swindles attempted by Greek and other shipowners during the great shipping slump which shook the world after the war of 1914-18. Cases of ships deliberately run ashore, of ships burned, of ships sunk so that their owners could claim enormous insurances for vessels worth only a tithe of their insured value, expose the nefarious activities of an underworld of shipping that has hitherto largely escaped attention owing to the complex factors involved. The description of the various accidents-grim, humorous and trivial -which brought these crimes to light and foiled the designs of their perpetrators forms a record twice as thrilling as any detective story - and absolutely true. [ps] Note: Somebody in the publishing company had a senior's moment and made an error in the title printed on the spine of one of the book printings.  I have a book  that has CRIME ON THE HIGH SEAS printed on the cloth spine. There is no indication within the book of any specific edition or printing other than the apparent first edition 1936. I gather it was noticed some time in production and the spine title quickly changed to CRIMES OF THE HIGH SEAS, as show.  Internally, the two printings are the same. I do not have a dustjacket for 'CRIME ON THE HIGH SEAS' - it would have been interesting to see if that too was mis-written but I doubt it.

DEEP-SEA-DIVING Author: David Masters Edited by: John Hampden and Freda Holmdahl. Illustrated by L. R. Brightwell. Published in 1935 by Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd, London Book 10 in a series of Discovery Books Binding: Hardback (this copy no DJ) 94 printed pages Dimensions: 19.5 cms tall by 13.5 cms wide Published in 9 chapters: The Diver, Chased by Pirates, Trapped in a Submarine, Clever Salvage Methods, On the Sea-Bed, A Great Gold Hunt, Sharks & Whales & Sunken Ships, Diving for £1,000,000 and The Hero of E41.  Illustrated with a combination of 12 drawings and photographs, the frontispiece is a commonly seen photo of David Masters dressed in Standard equipment at Scapa Flow. This book is published in the Discovery Book series, others include: British Airways, At Whipsnade Zoo, The Young Chemist, Discovering France, Behind the Cinema Screen, On the Seashore, and Underground Railways.  [pt]

DIVERS IN DEEP SEAS.  More Romances of Salvage. Published in 1938 by Eyre & Spottiswoode, London. Hardcover, 284 pages, mono photographs.  Over sixteen chapters, covers the explosion that destroyed the Maine, raising the Brussels, lifting the submarine F4, Diving Adventures, Experiences Grave and Gay. Gay! Thee word was used in a different context seventy years ago. Another excellent book by the master of salvage writing. [ps-no dj]

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EPICS OF SALVAGE.  Wartime Feats of the Marine Salvage Men. Cassell & Company, London,  First Edition March 1953.  Hardcover, dustjacket, 264 pages, mono plates. Image above left is probably the USA edition. Image right is th Cassell, London, edition. From the dust jacket fly: When the 13,415-ton S.S. Niagara, on passage from New Zealand to Vancouver, hit a mine thirty miles from Whangarei she took with her to the bottom £2,500,000 worth of gold destined to pay for war material from the United States. The marine salvage men brought up from a record depth £2,360,000. While the battleship H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth and her consort H.M.S. Valiant lay snugly at anchor in Alexandria harbour, Italian frogmen holed both of them with limpet mines which they attached to the bottoms of the ships. The marine salvage men raised both battleships without the Italians becoming aware that they had been successfully sunk. The Cunard liner Georgic, 27,759 tons, was hit by bombs in Suez Bay. Swept by fire and out of ontrol, she crashed into H.M.S. Glenearn and sank. Though she burned for a week, she was refloated by the salvage men and put back into service. The blocking of the Suez Canal by the Germans was a dire peril. Mr. Masters reveals how it was cleared in the nick of time. While the great French liner S.S.Normandie was being fitted as a troop-ship in New York harbour a orkman with a blow-torch set light to 11,000 Kapok life preservers stacked in the grand lounge. Burning from stem to stern she turned over on her side with many cargo doors and port-holes open and sank deep into the mud of the harbour bed. The raising of the Normandie was the greatest salvage feat ever achieved.  It was brilliant and scientific planning and training that enabled a crack diver of H.M.S. Reclaim to dive to 535 feet and regain the world's deep-diving record for the Royal Navy. These are a few of the wonderful achievements which David Masters recounts in his story of the salvage feats of the last war. They make a magnificent tribute to the incredible heroism and ingenuity which saved innumerable ships from almost certain oblivion at a time when shipping losses were one of this country's major problems. The author is well qualified to tell this heroic story, for his interest in marine salvage dates back to the 1914-18 war, after which he wrote the first popular book on the subject under the title Wonders of Salvage. [ps-cassell]

THE WONDERS OF SALVAGE David Masters. First published in 1924. John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd, UK). Hardcover, 229 pages, 48 b/w illustrations. Many reprints, and by a number of publishing firms.  In 1929 by John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd, in their 'The Weed-End Library' series.  Small size, hardcover, 'David Masters' signature in gold embossed on cover, 258 pages, no illustrations.  [ps-no dj] In 1944, by Eyre & Spottiswoode, London.   [ps-no dj] Hardcover, 292 pages, full page mono photographs. From eBay: A collection of stories on salvage operations of famous wrecks written by a salvage diver who orked on the sunken German High Seas fleet in the Scapa Flow. Many wrecks and salvage operations are mentioned in this book: Milwaukee wrecked near Aberdeen, Alphonso XII, Araby, HMS Audacious, Belgian Prince, Lutine,Britannia, City of Paris, Flying Dutchman,General Goethals, Gladiator, Hypatia, Intrepid, Laurentic, Leonardo da Vinci, Montagu, Montgomery, Oceana, Silurus, Timbo,Vindictive, Westmoreland, Onward, Seuvic, War Knight, Wrestler. There is a lot on: Admiralty, American ubmarines, battleships, blazing, blasting, cables, coffer dams,compressed air, divers, (attacked by octopus, buried alive, caught at 200 feet, crushed by pressure, working in darkness, salvaging treasure, boots, breathing, communication with submarine, diver feeds submarine prisoners, risks, survey,use hacksaws, pneumatic chisels, work in mud, in 190 feet, etc). Diving bell, dress, records, strains, tragedies, dredging, German ships and submarines, torpedoes, torpedo, WWI, world war I, lighthouses and lightships, Lusitania, mines, minefields, pontoons,pressure, pumps, salving ships, storms, trapped in sunken submarines, many references to treasure hunting,U-boat, U-Boot, etc. etc. The photos are impressive and it is astonishing what was achieved in this area 80 years ago. Amust for collectors.

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WHEN SHIPS GO DOWN First published 1932. Several reprints to at least 1941. Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd, London. Hardcover 355 pages, index, approx 20 mono plates.  Another excellent title by an author who has specialised in books on salvage and hard hat diving. This one is a compendium of stories of ship and salvers, with quite a bit on submarines (as the destructors), and treasure (the Egypt's gold is covered. Perhaps it is the anecdotes of the divers that are the most interesting in this book. A very good read. [ps] Far left jacket is from 1941 reprint; immediate left jacket is from 1936 reprint.

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UP PERISCOPE. The Immortal Record of His Majesty's Submarines. Dial Press. Location? 1943. (left)  Eyre & Spottiswoode, London. 1943. (right) Hardcover, dustjacket, 200 pages, index.  [ps]  [Also appears to have been in softcover also] Up Periscope gathers together the stories and exploits of a number of famous submarines —Spearfish, Sealion, Salmon, Ursula, Cachalot, Tigris, Thunderbolt, Rarqual. The original reviews of the book were rather less than enthusiastic: although the subject matter was described as enthralling, Masters's accounts were described as pedestrian and disjointed. C.R., writing in The Manchester Guardian (28 Oct 1942) thought the book would have had greater value had it contained something of the strategy of submarine warfare "...but Mr. David Masters, the author, limits himself to the deeds of individual submarines and their commanders, about which he writes in enthusiastic cliches. The tactics of torpedo attack are touched on only incidentally, and the hrough-the-looking-glass life of a submarine crew is dealt with only in a short preface." Above from http://bearalley.blogspot.com/2009/12/david-masters.html

THE BOYS BOOK OF SALVAGE David Masters Published by The Junior Literary Guild, Incorporated, New York in 1929. Hardcover with green boards and 268 printed pages. Dimensions 19.5 cms tall by 12.5 cms wide Illustrated with 16 black and white photographs Somewhat smaller in format to the other books published by David Masters and I don’t think it was actually published in the UK. Like all the other books by the author, the book is a good read and well illustrated.  The book is divided into 16 chapters with details of salvage done on ships like the Lutine, Oceana, and the Leonardo da Vinci.  He also details the search for treasure at Tobermory in Scotland and salving wrecks from quick sands.  He even details the salvage of a troop ship and the use of several steam locomotives to haul the wreck upright. I understand that there is another copy of this book but published by Dodd, Mead & Co in the same year. [pt],[ph]                   .

IN PERIL ON THE SEA.  Hardcover, 255pp mono photographs.  About the deeds of the merchant navy during WWII  [ph]

THE SUBMARINE WAR David Masters Henry Holt & Co. 1935. Hardcover, dustjacket. From the famed author of several deep sea diving books comes another title on undersea warfare in its infancy. WWI provided the first real test for submarine warfare, particularly against mercantile trade. Here Masters examines the theory and effect of their used in an attempt to starve Britain into submission and in so doing he ensures the role of merchant ships and their crews did not go unrecognised, using examples of grit, courage and determination. "In these thrilling true stories, Mr. Masters graphically described the gallant deed of the Merchant Marine; what these heroic men suffered; how they repeatedly defeated the German U-boats by their seamanship and prevented Great Britain from being starved into surrender."

"I.D." NEW TALES OF THE SUBMARINE WAR
Published by Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1940.
Hardcover, dust jacket?, 296 pags, mono plates.
Chapters include: The Outbreak of War, The Submrine Strike, Fighting the U-Boats, The End of U49, The Archangel Disaster, The Lusitania, German Attacks on Hospital Ships, Salviong the Sunik, and many others.
[ps-no dj]

S.O.S. - A BOOK OF SEA ADVENTURE
Published by Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1933.
Hardcover, dust jacket?, 338 pages, mono plates.
Chapters include:
The Passing of the Hong Moh, Drifting to Death, Ordeal by Fire, Out of the Inferno, Keepers of the Light, Th Burning Tanker, A Black Sea Adventure, Fire and Water, Perils of the Deep.
[ps-no dj]

THE ROMANCE OF SALVAGE 
A Record of the Amazing Discoveries in Egypt, Assyria, Troy, Crete, and elsewhere.
David Masters. 
Published by John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd. Date not known.

OTHER NON-FICTION BOOKS by David Masters

The Romance of Excavation. A record of the amazing discoveries in Egypt, Assyria, Troy, Crete, etc. London, John Lane, 1923.
The Conquest of Disease. London, John Lane, 1925.
New Cancer Facts, with a preface by Sir James Cantlie. London, John Lane, 1925.
How to Conquer Consumption, with an introduction by Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter. London, John Lane, 1926.
Perilous Days. London, John Lane, 1927.
The Glory of Britain. London, John Lane, 1930.
On the Wing. The pioneers of the flying age. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1934.
Deep-Sea Diving, illus. L. R. Brightwell. London & New York, T. Nelson & Sons, 1935.
What Men Will Do For Money. A revelation of strange cases and amazing frauds. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1937.
"So Few" The immortal record of the Royal Air Force. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1941; revised [8th ed.], Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1946.
With Pennants Flying. The immortal deeds of the Royal Armoured Corps. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1943.
Miracle Drug. The inner history of penicillin. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1946.
The Plimsoll Mark. London, Cassell & Co., 1955.