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A
MILLION OCEAN MILES
Sir Edgar Britten, Commodaore
of the Cunard-White Star Commander of RMS Queen Mary.
Hutchinson & Co., London.
1936.
Hardcover, dust jacket,
274 pages plus 32 pages of book advertisements, several interesting mono
photographs, no index.
From the fly: ‘This glowing
autobiography tells how young Edgar Britten first went to sea in a barque,
the Jessie Osborne ; of his ten years in ‘sail'; how he achieved
his master's certificate in sail and steam ; and of how he gradually rose
from post to post in the service of the Cunard. During the War he was carrying
troops or commanding hospital ships, and the fact that his ships were singularly
free from mishap displays only too clearly his fine seamanship. Staff Captain
of the Lusitania, he has commanded at various times the Mauretania, Aquitania,
Samaria, Laconia and Franconia. In 1931 he succeeded Commodore Sir ArthurRostron
as Captain of the Berengaria, continuing in her command until the
proudest moment of his life saw him taking the great Queen Mary to sea.
Sir Edgar Britten has figured in many dramas of the sea, and his story
of these, together with the numerous thrilling events of his career, makes
enthralling and vivid reading. These reminiscences were fortunately completed
shortly before his tragic ending.'
I did not enjoy this book.
I could not warm to the man, and his writing style was annoying to say
the least. The annecdotes have not weather the decades well and appear
purile and insignificant. The only redeaming feature, to my interest anyway,
was the description of some of the navigation and communication equipment
used during these early decades of the 20th century. I have the impression
that the good commodore was a pompous ass, but having not met the man,
what would I know. His one hour after Sunday church services in his cabin
with his senior crew sounds like a terrible ordeal for the senior officers
of the ship, and right on the hour they were ushered out of the cabin to
leave the commodore with peace and quiet. Doesn't sound like good PR to
me. Like Gattidge in his excellent biography, Britten tells insignificant
tales of the rich and famous on board but always in a positive way - there
is no criticism and if a passengers causes attention because he is drunk,
his real name is never mentioned. Damn, there is no scandal! What particuarly
annoys me is that the captain's tales are about the good ship Berengaria;
he only took command of the great Queen Mary for one return voyage I think
it was, before his death by natural causes, a stroke. Yet the book is promoted
on the skirt of the great lady. Its the Queen Mary on the cover - and no
photo of the Berengaria within the book. What a disappointment. [ps] |
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BLUE
ANGELS AND WHALES
A Record of Personal Experiences
Below and Above Water. Robert Gibbings.
First published in 1938
by Penguin Books; revised and enlarged in 1946. Printed by The Travel book
Club, London, 1947. Hardcover, 114 pages, nicely illustrated by the author.
This immediate post-war
period must have been an exciting time to travel and dive the world. The
author visits Bermuda, the Red Sea, Ghardaqa, Tahiti and other mysterious
places as they would have been in those days. His diving equipment looks
like a letterbox with shoulder straps and a hose attached and is described
as " a helmet, alength of hosepipe and an air pump". Had he bent over,
he would have lost the helmet. The noise of the pump was horrendous, and
he had som difficulty keeping his negative buoyancy until someobe suggsted
he wear a leaded-belt!!! His observatioons of mrine lif, and expereinces
above and blow water, are worth reading.
The scanned cover (left)
of "Blue Angels and Whales" is the 1938 paperback which is still complete
with the DJ, even on a paperback. [pt]
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ON
BLUE-WATER
Some Naratives of Sport
and Adventure in the Modern Mrchant Service.
J.F.Keane.
Tinsley Brothers, London,
1883.
Hardcover, quarter-bound
in leather, 288 pages.
Preface: In recounting the
following experiences, my desire is to illustrate life among the junior
officers and seamen of the merchant services of to-day; using, at the same
time, a certain sporting element, together with a nautical style
of phraseology, as my vehicle. Pompous ass! How an author can write nearly
three-hundred pages of drivel beats me! Chapters include Shark Killing;
How Sailors Fare; At the Helm: A Sailor's Grave; A Plea for the Shark;
On Board a Britisher; My Largest Shark; In The Roaring Forties; Under a
New Flag. But give the man his due - he believes, against common opinion
of the day, that "I am compelled to believe that on a few rare occassions
sharks have attacked and devoured living human beings". Okay, maybe he
does not wrote drivel, but the style is most off putting. I guess it's
simply its age that makes thios book interesting. [ps-in need of restoration] |
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THE
EARLY ENGLISH VOYAGES OF THE SIXTEEN CENTURY
Walter Raleigh, Professor
of Englsih Literature in the University of Oxford.
James MacLehose and Sons,
Publishers to the University, 1910.
Hardcover, no dustjacket,
206 pages, index, no photographs nor drawings.
When I first saw this I
thought it was by the great man himself, but alas, not so. But then, I
can see why the good professor would take on such an interest in maritime
history. He does of course mention his famous namesake, indeeds lauds him
as ‘the greatest adventurer of them all'. Much of the book is taken up
with the works of the prolific maritime chronicler Richard Hakluyt. A book
more for the scholar of British maritime history rather than the casual
reader of maritime matters. [ps] |
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PAMIR
- A Voyage To Rio In A Four Masted Barque.
Hilary Tunstall –Behrens
Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1956.
Hilary Tunstall-Behrens
had left Oxford and was teaching at Salem in 1951, when his imagination
was fired by the sight of the two great four masted barques, Pamir and
Passat, in the harbour at
Lubeck, fitting out for
trading voyages to South America. He enlisted as a member of the crew.
It was an astonishing crew – English and German cadets, refugee sailors
from East Germany, and a U-boat commander trying to rediscover the foundation
of a way of life. The author of this book helped in the training of the
boys on Outward Bound principles at a country estate in Germany, and sailed
from Hamburg soon after Christmas for Rio De Janeiro. The whole enterprise
was not merely an exciting voyage and a remarkable social adventure, but
a rediscovery of the ways of sail. The author writes with gay enthusiasm,
an infectious mixture of schoolboy and poet. The story of the voyage from
the German winter, through a stormbound spell in the channel while the
Margate and Walmer life-boats stood by, moves through the calm of tropical
days at sea into a happy chapter on a sailor's life ashore in Rio; and
the long voyage home. In this book we learn the songs, stories, irritations
and dangers of such a journey and such a crew. It is a valuable record
of great fascination and integrity. |
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PERIL
OF THE SEA. A Book of Shipwrecks and Escapes.
J.G.Lockhart.
Published 1924 by Philip
Allan & Co., London.
Hardcover, 204 pages, mono
photographs. From 'The White Ships' of 1120, to the Titanic in 1912. Includes
the Royal George (1782), La Tribune (1797), Medusa (1816), Rothsay Castle
(1830), Birkenhead (1852).
Hardcover, no dustjacket
my copy, 294 pages, eight mono plates, 18 chapters, covering shipwreck
from 1120 (the White Ship), to the loss of the Titanic in 1912. Within
these dates are the losses of: Wager 1740; Phoenix 1780; Royal George 1882;
La Tribune 1797; the Medusa 1816; Kent 1825; Rothsay Castle 1830; and Birkenhead
1852. Other chapters : The Strange Voyage of Piertro Quirini 1431; the
Last Voyage of Sir Humfrey Gilbert 1583; the Casting away of the Tobie
1593; the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates 1609; the Story of Occum
Chamnam 1686, the Shipwreck and Slavery of Saugnier 1783. [ps]
Also listed as: 1928 reprint
of the 1924 original, No. 3 in the Nautilus Library series; 254 pages,
cloth cover, gilt device on front cover, gilt title on spine, with dustjacket
(as shown), 17.4 x 11.5 cm. |
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PERILOUS
DAYS The Tales of Adventure.
David Masters.
Published by John Lane The
Bodley Head Ltd. Date not known. |
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PIRACY
WAS A BUSINESS.
Cyrus H. Karraker, author
of The Hispaniola Treasure.
Richard R. Smith Publisher,
Inc 1953
Hardcover, dustjacket, 244
pp, illustrated with old maps and drawings.
For, indeed, there was a
time when pirates swarmed all over the world....This volume makes a noteworthy
contribution by emphasizing how consistently the merchant and politician
were in league with the pirate and how valiantly those who hated
piracy fought to eliminate it from the high seas and from the coastlines
of every continent. The author describes the pirate's various exploits
~ their terrorizing, plundering and wrecking ~ and their fabulous kingdoms
and societies such as those on St. Mary's Island, Madagascar and in the
Caribbean. Highly fortified against unwanted intruders, these island strongholds
were the storehouses for enormous amounts of loot and treasure. Merchants
traveled great distances to obtain these stores in trade for rum, ammunition
and provisions. In these pages we learn of the true personalities of those
"romantic" buccaneers we have all known, in a vague sense, since childhood.
Meet Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, King Adam Baldridge and the whole
parcel of lesser lights as they really were. A pirate book to be read with
consuming interest by both general reader and scholar. |
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SAIL
HO!
My Early years at Sea.
Sir James Bisset.
Ex-Commondore of the Cunard
Line.
Angus and Robertson Ltd,
London, Sydney. 1958. Reprint 1959.
At fifteen the author went
to sea as an apprentice in the three-masted barque County of Pembroke,
plying its way from England to Australia, New Zealand and the west coast
of Amrica. For six years he served in ail making four voyages around Cape
Horn. He ended up commanding the great Cunard ships Queen Elizabeth and
Queen Mary. |
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S.O.S.
A Book of Sea Adventures.
David Masters.
Published in 1933 by Eyre
and Spottiswoode, London.
Hardcover, 340 pages, mono
photographs.
Sixteen chapters covering
a number of themes - Drifing to Death, Ordeal by Fire, Perils of th Deep
etc.
(My copy signed by the author,
as a gift to a Sewell Wells, Christmas 1933. |
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SEA-DOGS
OF TODAY.
A.J.Villiers.
Published in 1932 by George
G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, London, Bombay and Sydney. 284 pages, mono photographs.
Reprint July 1934.
Anything by Villiers is
interesting and original. In fact, he mentions that anyone can write a
sea book - just 'buy copies of the other sea books already written, and
then ... compile a book that is more or less your own'. Quite so.
He was already an accomplished author when he wrote this volume. |
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THE
CASTAWAYS
A Narrative History of Some
Survivors from th Dangers of the Sea.
Robert Carse. Published
by Robert Whiting & Wheaton, London, 1966.
Chapters include those on
Alexander Selkirk (the 'original' Robinson Crusoe), William Dampier, Job
Hortop, John Byron, Willen Barents, Francis Sparry and Goodwin, Herman
Melville, Mary Bryant and Alfred Russel Wallace. Hardcover, dustjacket,
240 pages, index, bibliography. |
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THE
CRUISE OF THE CACHALOT.
Round the World after
Sperm Whales.
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Frank T. Bullen.
First Mate.
Illustrations by Mead Schaeffer.
Published in 1928 by Dodd,
Mead & Company.
Hardcover, embossed cover,
301 pages,. The nine superb illustration are several quite superb watercolours
in the style of Norman Lindsay.
A well known book, one of
the classic on whaling and whaling voyages.
This is certainly one of
the greatest of the ‘whaleing adventure' classics, and although the act
of whaling is, in my humble opinion, horrific, it was a legitimate business
until synthetic oils and lubricants were developed in the mid 20th century.
Now of course there is no legitimate reason to kill a whale, except to
feed the pathetic egos of some nations who believe they have the right
to kill and eat the meat. The Japanese do it in the name of science!!
There is no denying that the life of the whalemen was rough and tough and
certainly not without it dangers in the days of hand-harpooning whales.
(Now the cowards stand at the bow of a ‘whale chaser' and fire an exposive
harpoon at the whale from the safety of their vessel). Bullen is a superb
writer. This may well have been his first book.
[ps-first edition, one plate
missing].(Title page shown left). |
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THE
CRUISE OF THE MARCHESA TO KAMSCHATKA AND NEW GUINEA
With Notices of Formosa,
Liu-Kiu, and Various Islands of the Malay Archipelago.
E.H.H.Guillemard.
Published in 1889 by John
Murray, London.
Hardcover, no dustjacket,
gold embossed on blue cloth boards, with image of vessel, and title in
script lettering (quite attractive); 460 pages, 'with maps and numerous
woodcuts'.
The copy I have is the Second
Edition. It appears that the First Edition was in two volumes, and included
two hand-coloured plates of birds. More of an anthropological study, it
gives a detailed description of the flora and fauna of the islands mentioned,
the poeple, and the geography. An important work.
There are several excellent
fold-out maps, and the engravings are quite superb. The Marchesa
was an auxiliary screw schooner yacht of 420 tons, under Captain C.T. Kettlewell
who was also the owner, built on the Clyde in 1881. In January 1884 she
set sail on a most remarkable voyage, returning home to Southampton in
April 1884. The author's descriptions of the flora and fauna, the people,
the geography and environment, the climate, and the seas is quite extraordinary.
It centres more on the fauna and flora, not unlike Darwin's Beagle voyage
a half century before. [ps] |
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THE
DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
Garrett Mattingly.
Published 1959, by Jonathan
Cape, London.
Hardcover, dustjacket, 382
pages, charts, mono prints.
I gather this is a major
work on th subject. |
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THE
REMARKABLE STORY OF ANDREW SWAN.
Being A Record Of His Experiences,
Of His Shipwreck, And Of His Many Escapes From Death During Forty-Four
Years Of Wandering Adventures By Land And Sea.
Andrew Swan
London, Hodder And Stoughton
Limited, 1933. Hardcover with dustjacket, 8vo;254 pp; free map endpapers. |
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THE
STORY OF THE SEAMAN
Being An Account of the
Ways and Appliances of Seafarers and of Ships From the Earliest Time Until
Now.
John Forsyth Meigs.
Published in 1924 by J.B.Lippincott
Co, Philadelphia and London.
In Two Volumes. Hardcover,
no dustjacket, title and author lightly embossed on cover and spine, 675
pages (total), several mono plates, index.
A very imporant work as
it describes how the ancient (and modern) ships were manned and manoeuvered;
there use in trade and war.
This is heavy going - only
the most dedicated of maritime students would have the constitution to
wade through so much information. The text is small and tireing to read,
but the content is remarkable, fascinating, so much knowledge crammed into
two heafy books. Volume One takes us from the very earliest documented
mariners, the Phenicians; the early battes five centuries before Christ;
the wars of the Greeks and Romans and Persians, and how they operated and
manned their ships; the ships of Christ, from five centures before his
time through to five centuries after; the ‘round ships' of the Esat from
500AD to 1500; and the development of navigational skills and the use of
the astrolabe and compass, and their voyaages. Volume 1 contaains 28 mono
illustrations. Volume Two continues the chronological theme, with the ships
of the Crisades; the ‘throwing machjines' and use of gunpowder in war;
and the ships in the more recent half a millenia. The final two centuries
of our existence are barely covered - Cook and Dampier and Magellan and
a few others are mentioned, but the author apparently leaves their voyages
for other writers to document. Volume two is illustrated with twenty mono
plates.
For the student of ancient
maritime development, these volumes are invaluable. [ps] |
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THE
WRECK OF THE DUMARU
A Story of Cannibalism
in An Open Boat.
Lowell Thomas.
Published in 1930 by P.F.Collier
& Son Corp, New York by special arrangement wwith Doubleday, Doram
& Co, Inc, New York.
Hardcover, 270 pages, mono
photographs.
The steamship exploded when
near Guam soon after the end of World War 1 (from what I can gather), with
some fo the crew managing to escape in two boats. It was all downhill from
there - the boats floated off into the Pacific, and in a twenty-eight day
journey which saw terrible depravations, and cannibalism, made the Philippine
islands.
"The wreck of the Dumaru,
with its nightmare tragedy, was indeed an episode too dark for this century,
the twentieth. The things that came to pass, with an excess of terror,
horror, and pity, might appear to have small part in the circumstance and
chances of modern life at sea. They belong rather to an older and
eviler day on the than to these times of wireless, skilfully scues, better
construction and equipment of vessels, and regulated precautions of have
to deal with an idea which for long centuries had its ominous place in
life at sea, in the notions the people of the land held about the sea.
It was the ultimate and culminating disaster which might befall those who
venture afar upon the waters. Indeed, you might classify the wreck of the
Dumaru as a monumental example in classical tradition."
Note: Lowell Thomas is the
author of the acclaimed biography of Count Von Luckner, ‘The Sea Devil'.
[ps] |
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THERE
GO THE SHIPS
Archibald MacMechan
McClelland & Stewart,
Toronto, 1928
Hard Cover, dustjacket (with
sailing ship on front); 293pp.
Twelve nautical stories
of Bluenose sea captains and ships. These are the hardened skippers of
Nova Scotia. |