Customer Reviews

American Merchant Ships, 1850-1900

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first purchased Vol. 2 of this set unaware that it was the second part of the work. First published as two books in 1930 and 1931, this particular version was a compiled by Dover Publications and first appeared in 1987. Vol. 2 has no introduction, preface, foreword or chapters page and, although "Series II" appears on the cover, there is no mention of it being the second in a two volume set. Indeed, one gets the firm impression that the two original works published by Frederick C. Matthews in 1930 and 1931 have been combined into this single book.

Having said that, Vol. 2 does claim to include 322 sailing ships, 131 pictures of ships and 64 captains portraits when these are the totals for both books. In addition, across both books, the publishers have added 24 pages which advertise other books from Dover Publications (approx 10 books per page), with a further 79 of their books mentioned inside both sets of front and back covers. OH, and there are also 12 blank pages! One might also enquire why pictures of steamships appear on the covers of both books when the subject matter is sailing ships! Those two pictures, incidentally, are not identified anywhere within the work. Finally, we have no way of knowing whether or not the rather excellent dedication to someone's wife is the original (I do hope so!) or has been added by whomsoever compiled this later version.

In short, this is an excellent work put together in a very shoddy fashion and is a rather sloppy way of putting together two first-rate books from a man who knew his craft. In short, the original work was worth 5 stars, Dover are worth no more than 3!

So what do we have? Firstly we have 322 ships (I have not counted them!) which are described as being "wind driven leviathans, mostly built in Maine." This is Dover's way of explaining that the ships are the less glamorous work horses as opposed to the more famous Clippers. The ships in both books are arranged in separate alphabetical order (i.e. A-Z in both books) for which the author has produced an account of each ship which is well researched and easy to read. As an example of content, and picking two ships at random from Vol. 2, the Leading Wind is afforded just over two pages whereas the Levi C. Wade gets less than one. Nevertheless, we get full details of when and where each vessel was built, her dimensions and tonnage plus a brief résumé of the ship's career at sea. There are also details of a specific prominent captains of the day.

Though limited to a selection of vessels built mostly in Maine, this is a very useful addition to my own understanding of US built vessels and will be invaluable to anyone engaged in researching certain ships.

NM