Customer Reviews

Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy" is a wonderful repository of information about ships, life at sea, and naval warfare during the era of Jack Aubrey, Richard Bolitho, and Horation Hornblower (frequent mention of these and other fictional Royal Navy officers is made in the book, placing them in the real life context). The range of material covered is very broad, and it is attractively and concisely presented, often in a graphical or tabular form. The book is illustrated with hundreds of drawings, paintings and diagrams, many of them from contemporary sources. If you want information about ship types, naval weapons, life on board, battles, ship handling, sails and rigging, watches and bells, rates of pay, distribution of prize money, and seemingly almost anything else you can think of, this is a very handy place to find it. I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning about the background to the novels of Patrick O'Brian, Alexander Kent, Dudley Pope, and C.S. Forester.

When I was much younger and first started reading the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S. Forester, I was blown away by the authenticity, yet puzzled by the jargon - what's a halliard, for example, or a topsail? What does it mean to shorten sail, and what is the lee side of a ship? This book would have helped immensely. It's not overly technical, nor does it swamp you with minutiae, but it gives you a good general overview of the British ships of the Napoleonic era, what the nautical terms are, what life was like on board and a couple of summaries of battles for good measure.

This is an appetizer, but what an appetizer it is. If you're looking for more technical specs of ships of the line look elsewhere, but if you're a newbie to the entire historical nautical fiction scene, I can think of few better places to start.

This book is full of clear illustrations and explanations of the main aspects of naval life and operations. I'm working my way through the O'Brian series and this book is quite helpful when I can't remember a brig from a sloop or whether the topsails are above or below the topgallants. My brother is reading the Hornblower series and he'll get a birthday present of this book. I especially like the references to the multiple fictional series that appear throughout the sidebars and main text.

Don't look for long, drawn-out technical specifications in this book. It covers a wide variety of topics at just enough detail to appreciate the historical accuracy and color of the fiction.`

I found this book to be quite useful due to the amount of information presented in a relatively small space. All of the data can easily be found in other books, but it's nice to have so much of it all in one place. The writing is competent and the author obviously loves his subject. Overall the book provides an entertaining glimpse into the British navy at the height of it's power during the great age of sail. My problem with the book is in it's presentation. The illustrator, Richard Lawrence, has a style that might most charitably be described as amateurish. Further the layout of the book is a mish-mosh of period illustrations (often badly or muddily scanned and printed in garish blue), Lawrence's original art as well as his copies or adaptations of period illustrations, and less than stellar "Adobe Illustrator"-style drawings used to illustrate some technical points (the jacket illustration is by Geoff Hunt and is quite nice). The overall effect is jarring and the lack of competence in the design and illustration makes the book a difficult read. I guess my major complaint is simply that I've been wanting a book just like this one for years (it might have been great) and I'm just dissapointed at the ham-handedness of this volume's presentation.

Quite simply, this book gets it's facts wrong so often I've had to annotate every page in 10 to put it right. Real life ship facts and biographies are wrongly quoted but even more glaringly this book fails in its main mission. It sold itself to me on having authoritative pieces written in it that list many ships in fiction books. Ships like the Hotspur or Virago from two noted writers novels. Guess what? The list is in error and has the wrong entries in it. Not only that but ships rates are wrongly classified in this book and the number of guns they carried. Most of the technical stuff is valid but when the author tries to weave the fictional maritime world in he fails miserably.
I do love my copy though, it makes for interesting reading BUT I would only recommend it to a seasoned historian or fan of the era who KNOWS the truth about certain facts and books and can use that to glean the goodness from this (very stylishly presented) mishmash. A glorious mess but still a MESS!

...

This book is far easier to read and better organized than many similar books on the subject. The illustrations are, for the most part, excellent. The author is obviously thoroughly familiar with the subject matter, and provides a great deal of information on the Royal Navy's organization, ships, crew, and tactics of the time. There are also well written descriptions of a few of the most significant battles of the period and some sections about areas of special interest (such as the War of 1812). The sections covering some of the other naval powers of the time left me wanting more, but this book provides more such information than most. The book frequently references many of the better works of Napoleonic naval fiction, making it a must if you read these books.

I fail to understand why I should pay attention to a review that pans this book ,(Richard Lawrence) which has been praised and enjoyed by many, myself included, and pans it on the basis of what clearly must be a personal or professional grudge against the publisher or co-author. Bizarre to say the least. I think for the reader of Hornblower or the Jack Aubrey novels, this book opens up a world of fascinating and most useful knowledge that wonderfully complements the reading of these novels. It also stands alone and a comprehensive and richly detailed glimpse of this remarkable period of naval history. I'm sure a second edition would set to rights the occasional factural errors. Cheers, Peter Lower, Port Hope, Ontario Canada.

The previous reviewers have said it all, and well. I'll just add my weight and say that the book is packed with just the kind of information that someone new to the subject wants, is an excellent value and a great companion to whatever nautical fiction series you may be reading. It's true that some illustrations will make you scratch your head (What is the purpose of the painting of H.M.S. Victory on pg. 24 that looks like it was done by a second-grader?) but the vast majority are helpful. If the topic becomes a hobby, you will want more technical drawings of the ships and it will be time to pay more for a book with a more specific subject. As an introduction, this book is first-rate.

This is an excellent and well-researched book. It brilliantly recreates life aboard ship from the day to day matters of diet, dress, pay and conditions to the weightier matters or mutiny, weaponry and war. There are full accounts of famous battles with battle plans, maps, diagrams and descriptions of the different classes of ships, and full colour illustrations. Everything you ever wanted to know about naval life in Nelson's era is here and as the book puts the characters of Forester, O'Brian, Kent and others in a historical context, it's also great for fans of naval fiction. Fascinating and a jolly good read.

Simply a must-have. If you are a fan of the period, or actively read 18/19th century sailing novels, this book is very helpful.