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FULL
FORTY FATHOMS.
Stories of Underwater Adventure.
Selected by Phyllis R. Fenner,
illustrated by Michael Eagle.
William Morrow and Co, New
York, 1975.
Hardcover, presume dustjacket,
192 pages, mono line drawings.
Chapter contents: Swim for
Life, by Newton Rhodes; Hate, by Arthur C. Clarke; Depth Charge!, by C.
S. Forester; Flounder, Flounder in the Sea, Paul Annixter; The Dark Dive,
by Robert Edmond Alter, Down to the S-4, by Edward Ellsberg; Young Man
With a Spear, by Joseph Whitehill; The Living Torpedo, by Tom Yates; It's
A Long Way Down, by Georges Carousso; Cave Diving, by Jacques-Yves Cousteau
with Frederic Dumas.
From the fly: The ten
stories presented here run the gamut of stark terror, heroic courage,
and grim determination as men face the perils beneath the sea. The themes
concern rescue, exploration, and other encounters of high drama that frequently
occur in this frontier world. Two submariners ride a human tor- pedo under
freezing waters to blow up a V-boat in a Norwegian fiot;d during the Second
World War. They know- and conquer-desperate fear. When the kraken, most
frightful undersea monster of them all, surfaces near Bill Newlin's lugger
in the Caribbean, he gasps with horror as the creature sends out two white
tentacles, which shoot under the ship's rail and along the deck. Oddly
enough, the experience brings to Newlin a treasure of Spanish gold. A dis-
missed Navy diver, fighting a brave battle against a lifelong hatred, risks
his life "full forty fathoms" down to save the son of his enemy. Among
the authors represented in this latest collection by a noted anthol- ogist,
are such masters as Arthur C. Clarke, Jacques Cousteau, Edward Ellsberg,
and C. S. Forester.
There is little doubt that
the book is directed at the juvenile reader, although the authors presented
are certainly not children's authors. There is no indication that the 'stories'
have been edited or abridged by anyone other than the authors however it
could well be presumed that Phyllis Fenner, whomever she may be, has had
a hand in the precis. Thats fine - its a great read anyway.
Note: Page 71 - illustration
is upside down. Thats what happens when you have book editiors that do
not have a clue about the underwater world. [ps] |
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MEN
AGAINST THE SEA
Ross R. Olney
Grosset & Dunlap, New
York, 1969.
Hardcover (illustraated
boards same as dust jacket). medium format, 147 pages, well illusrated
with mono photographs throughout.
This is basically a compendium
of thirteen men who have achieved some distintinction with relation to
the sea. Not all are divers - those of specific interest to us are: Hans
Keller, Simon Lake, Jacques Ciusteau, August and Jacques PiccardAndreas
Rechnitzer (I bet you have not heard of him), Chales 'Swede' Momsen, Edward
Ellsberg and Robert Dill. Thats eight out of the thirteen chapters thius
making this quite a rfelevant book for diver interest.
From the fly: The struggle
between man and the sea is as old as man himself. As man mastered his own
environment, so too did he start on his conquest of the oceans - though
much more slowly, for the sea is a cunning and dangerous adversary to a
creature whose natural habitat is the land. Now, however, modern man is
armed with new knowledge and technology and has found new ways to conquer
the sea. From the many great sea fighters of the twentieth century, Ross
Olney has chosen thirteen men whose stories of adventure, heroism, and
outstanding achievement make dra- matic and astonishing reading. Here are
the famous scientists, inventors and adven- turers who have pitted their
knowledge, their skills, and their courage against this age-old foe. Scientists
like the Piccards, and Jacques Cousteau, and Hannes Keller, who found new
ways to probe for secrets beneath the sea. Inventors like Simon Lake, a
star- crossed dreamer who developed the s1:lb- marine and fought a lonelÑ
crusade to win its acceptance. Adventurers like Sir Francis Chichester,
who sailed his Gipsy Moth around the world, and Robert Manry, who piloted
his 13-foot Tinkerbelle across the Atlantic. Scholars like Thor HeyerdahI
and the brave men of the Kon-Tiki, whose fabulous sea journey on a, raft
retraced the route of an ancient historic migration. Divers like Commander
Edward Ellsberg, who also wrote best-selling books about his fascinating
adventures on the sea floor. Ross Olney, an amateur diver himself, knows
his subject and writes eloquently of these and other celebrated figures
and their accomplishments. Over sixty-five photo graphs illustrate the
stories. [ps] |
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TAKE
ME UNDER THE SEA
Thomas N Burgess
Subtitle: The Dream Merchants
of the Deep
Published by: The Ocean
Archives, Oregon, USA in 1994.
Card back with illustrated
covers; 259 printed pages. Dimensions: 23 cms tall by 15 cms wide
This book is essentially
divided into three sections, each being devoted to pioneers in diving,
manely the men who wrote an undersea novel, the man who painted under the
sea and the brothers who made undersea films. Section 1 is essentially
about Jules Verne but it does look at the rise of science fiction and other
contemporary authors. The second section looks at the life and work
of the underwater painter Zarh Pritchard. In the third part, the
author looks at the life and work of the Williamsons and their underwater
filming of things like the 1916 version of “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”.
The book is illustrated
with many monochrome photographs but has no chapters or index, only the
three sections. [pt]
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THE
MAMMOTH BOOK OF THE DEEP
Jon E. Lewis
Death is only a breath away,
just when you thought it was safe. "The Mammoth Book of The Deep" presents
thirty true-life stories of danger, endurance and adventure from this final
frontier. Encounter great white sharks, the stricken Kursk submarine, gold
salvagers, sponge divers, giant squid, the wreck of the Titanic, Navy frogmen,
and bathyscopes in record-breaking descents. These riveting accounts range
from the Red Sea to the South Pacific, from the North Atlantic to the Caribbean
- and include contributions by names such as Jacques Cousteau, Hans Hasse,
Peter Benchley, and, Tim 'Neutral Buoyancy' Ecott. This book includes:
"Goldfinder": Keith Jessop - salvaging the gold cargo from HMS Edinburgh;
"Black Water": Don Camsell - an SBS training operation aboard a mini-sub
goes tragically wrong off the coast of Scotland; "A Time to Die": Robert
Moore - the operation to rescue the trapped submariners of the Kursk; "Discovering
the Titanic": Robert Ballard - the world's foremost wreck-hunter on the
world's greatest wreck; "Descent": William Beebe - the record breaking
descent in a bathysphere off Bermuda, 1934; and, "World Without Sun": Jacques
Cousteau - the famous experiment in living for a month on the sea bed. |
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THE
OCEAN REALM
Contributing authors: Robert
D Ballard, Linda McCarter Bridge, Sylvia A Earle, Lee Loftin, Joseph B
MacInnis, Tom Melham and H Robert Morrison.
Published by: The National
Geographic Society in 1978
Hardback illustrated cover
- 199 printed pages. The blue cloth hard cover has a nice imprint of a
lion fish with what appears to be silver-blue foil. Dimensions: 26 cms
tall by 18 cms wide
As with all National Geographic
publications, the book is extremely well illustrated with over 210 colour
photos.
Divided into 7 sections:
1 - The Call of the Sea
by Sylvia A Earle. 2 - The Shallow Shores by H Robert Morrison.
3 - The Rocky Coast by Linda McCarter Bridge. 4 - The Coral Reefs
by Tom Melham. 5 - The Open Ocean by Tee Loftin. 6 - The Ocean
Depths by Robert D Ballard. 7 - The Polar Seas by Joseph B McInnis.
[ps],[pt]
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