The Book of Old Ships and Something of Their Evolution and Romance

The author presents a history of sailing ships through illustrations and descriptions that span 2-3 pages. He breaks the subject matter between long ships and round ships and presents the ships in chronological order from ancient galleys to clippers. The content of the description seems to be drawn from personal experience, where possible, and various research sources. The author does use a lot of naval terminology for rigging and ship structure that may leave the young or unversed in the dark. The real glory of the book is not, however, the entertaining prose, but the drawings of the ships. The art ranges from mostly black ink renderings of the ships to a few water colors (at least in my hardcover copy) that are simply beautiful pieces. If you are lucky enough to find a decent early copy (like my 1924 copy) jump on it. Or, if you are interested in seeing what various sailing ships looked like, any copy will do. P-)