Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1793-1815 (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

First published in 1990, this encyclopedic yet highly readable work gives an indepth description of the Royal Navy in Lord Nelson's time. Filled with over four hundred illustrations, the book is divided into fourteen sections that deal with the design and construction of ships, the navy's administration, and life at sea. Other topics include shiphandling and navigation, gunnery techniques and fighting tactics, and a discussion of foreign navies of the day. Nelson's Navy is an important source book for the naval historian, a valuable reference for the enthusiast, and a revelation to the general reader.

About the Author

Brian Lavery, the curator of ship technology at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, is the author of several books, including Jack Aubrey Commands, Nelson and the Nile, and The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600-1815. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press (February 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870212583
• ISBN-13: 978-0870212581
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #780,517 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book on This Topic, June 5, 2003

By	Meighan I. Dillon "maoilios" (Roswell, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the best book I have ever encountered for this topic. It has something about everything. If you don't want a guide to all the parts, skip down to ***.
Part I shows the background and is very useful to someone who doesn't know about it already.
Part II is about the ships themselves. It's extremely informative and has many illustrations showing profiles of ships, from First Rates to unrated vessels. It talks about the fundamentals of ship design and the individual kinds of ships.
Part III is entitled, "Ship Building and Fitting." It is divided into four subtitles: Ship Construction; Fitting of Ships; Masts, Sails and Rigging; and Armament. Each provides extensive details in its respective subject.
Part IV is about the officers. It begins with telling about midshipmen (trainee officers) and their progress to the examination for lieutenant. Then the author tells us about the commisioned (or "sea") officers, telling us about the different ranks, "from lieutenant to admiral of the fleet", as he puts it. In this section, he also tells us about shore duties, half-pay, and retirement. He next discusses the warrant officers (who include the master, surgeon, purser, chaplain, boatswain {pronounced, "bo's'un"}, carpenter, gunner, and schoolmaster) and their duties and pay. The next subtitle is "Officers' Living Conditions," and it talks about uniforms very specificly from 1795-1814, but rather vaguely at other dates; decorations; swords; cabins; and victuals. The final subtitle for this book is about ship administration, and covers: the captain's responsibilities to raise a crew, keep a log, and turn in 25 forms to the admiralty; the purser's position; shipboard communication; and prize money.
Part V concerns the problems of recruiting (sailors wanted to be in the merchant service more), the infamous press gangs (bands of sailors setting out to "press" or force people into the navy), and other types of recruitment.
Part VI is entitled,"Seamen and Land[s]men." It talks about "Jack Tar's" (a colloquial term for an able or ordinary seaman) terms of service and how he could become a petty officer; "Land[s]men, Artificers and Servants," the positions which could easily be held by landlubbers; and the naval plagues: mutily and desertion.
Part VII is about the marines, who were like people in the army except that they served on naval ships and vessels.
Part VIII is called, "Techniques" and is about the skills used in basic seamanship, ship handling, boat and anchor work, battle, navigation, and disaster. It has illustrations showing several interesting knots.
Part IX is titled "Shipboard Life" and talds about shipboard organisation, how time was counted, the watch system, clothing, food, pleasures, health, and discipline.
Part X is entitled "Dockyards and Bases," and it's about just that. In addition to the text, there are several interesting charts.
The title of Part XI is, "Fleets." It talks about their distribution around the world, fleet administration, signaling, and tactics.
Part XII is "The Seaman's World." It talks about winds, currents, and other maritime bodies.
Part XIII is called, "Foreign Navies." It's primarily about the French, Spanish, and American Navies, as these were the two most often encountered, but there is a section on "Other Foreign Naval Forces."
Part XIV is "Tactics," and it is about actual battles, blockade, cruisers, convoys, and amphibious operations.
At the end there are some appendices, all of which are extremely informative. I use them more than any other part of the book.
***This is a great book, but not for the faint- hearted. If you've never looked at something like this before, I would suggest something like /Men of War/ by Patrick O'Brian and then maybe this if you're still interested. That book is a great introduction. /Nelson's Navy/ is very costly, so if you know you're interested but you're on a tight budget, I would recommend /The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy/ by Nicholas Blake & Richard Lawrence. This is smaller, but it's also in depth, and it has references to most novels on the topic, as well as being more detailed about the uniforms. If you can afford it, I suggest that you get it along with this one.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best reference work available on the subject, February 29, 2004

By	Michael K. Smith (Gonzales, Louisiana) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

I've read a number of nonfiction books lately on the Royal Navy during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, and this is far and away the best of them -- no comparison, not even Lavery's own _Jack Aubrey Commands_ (2003), which is in many ways merely a cut-down version of this encyclopedic volume. This is 350 pages of highly detailed, heavily illustrated discussion of every conceivable subject and all its subtopics, from the engineering principles of ship design and the differences among each of the different rates, to the divisional organization of the Royal Marines, to the truth (with statistics) behind the press gang system, to a disquisition on the differences in naval fighting tactics between the British and French and Spanish fleets -- and a great deal more. And there are even graphs, flow charts, and organization tables to bring disparate informatiion together. It's actually a very slow read because there's so much to absorb, even for the experienced fan of Forester and O'Brian -- but that's certainly not a criticism! I'll be referring back to this gorgeous, oversized book for many years to come.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent overview of the Royal Navy in Nelson's Time, March 17, 1997

By A Customer

If you can only afford one book about the Royal Navy during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, then this is the one. Covering every aspect of the RN during the time of Horatio Nelson this book has it all from an historical background; details of the life on board for officers, men and marines; aspects of ship handling, weapons and tactics; and just about everything else immaginable. Extremely well illustrated, perhaps the only negative comment might be that it would be nice if a portion of the illustrations were in colour