BOOKS The Medley of Mast and Sail: A Camera Record, foreword by Frank G. Carr (Annapolis M .. Naval Institute Press. 1977. 330 pp., illus., 521.95). This superb new volume (a British import) extensively portrays the vanished age of commercial sail in its final century, from about the time of the introduction of the camera to the midtwentieth century. Covered are all manner of vessels of all sizes and rigs from proas, oyster dredges and junks to mammoth four- and five-masters. Skillful editing has prevented this rich stew degenerating into a meaningless hodgepodge, allowing instead for the evolution of a unified, cohesive presentation that transports the reader into a bygone era. The parade of ships is breathtaking. The humble sail lighters and " stacker" barges gain dignity, seen in perspective of their everyday work in the final epoch of sail. Their claim to a niche in history is strengthened when they are shown in their proper, working roles, as important links in the world commerce of the day. Rare photographs of long-forgotten journeymen of the sea, sail tramps such as the Vimiera or the undistinguished topsail schooner Euphemia are in themselves interesting, especially as they seldom surface into print. They are portrayed here cheek by jowl with the finest sailing vessels of their era in a total of 409 photographs that follow each other in a subtle chapter plan that creates a true feeling for the incredible age that has so recently come to a close. One could regret the scantiness of coverage of the American contribution to all this. Surely the Down Easters deserved more than a passing mention in a work of this scale, as do such craft as the Gloucester schooners and other uniquely American designs. This may be nitpicking, however, an overly chauvinistic view of a grand portrait of international parade of sail. DOD
Life Along the Hudson, by Allan Keller (Tarrytown, NY, Sleepy Hollow Restorations, 1976, 272 pp., illus., $10.00). SEA HISTORY has urged its readers to go inland, to explore the river hinterlands of seaport towns, and learn something of the life we lived when we came ashore from the ships that brought us so far. Sleepy Hollow Restorations, in three projects strung us along the lower 50 miles of the Hudson River, carries the visitor from the 19th-century world of Washington Irving back to the early river manors of the grand merchant families, Philipse and Yan Cortlandt.
SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1977
These families derived their great wealth not from besting the wilderness, but from making the best of the maritime marketplaces of New York City, founded on seaborne trade- the same that supported the society that read Irving's books a century and a half later, in a more settled land. Here, in two quite different volumes from Sleepy Hollow, we have the sweep of the river in history, with all the variety of cultures and tumult of events that clustered round it, and the Revolutionary War memoirs of one of its citizens, Philip Yan Cortlandt, who embraced the patriot cause early and wholly like his father (as many of his peers did not) and served as a young colonel in Washington's army. Life Along the Hudson runs clear and coherent within the well defined borders
of its concerns, like its parent river. It avoids the horrible mistake such works are prone to, in trying to say too much or be too many things (the kind of work that leaves one's head ringing, while one wonders what it was all about). Keller twists and turns a bit to get in all he wants, from ecology to folklore to the developing tastes of the natives in art and recreation. But the thread, the life nourished by the Hudson, runs clear and strong. Here are the landmark happenings, the lively personalities, the hunters, fishers, warriors, traders, gamblers and steam boat drivers who coursed the river, and the farmers, miners, idealists, hoteliers and boatbuilders who settled on its banks. The great secret of a bouillabaisse, to keep the flavors clear, is well observed here. You learn from the people, the
The Book Locker ··Here we are 1•• shouted the conglomerate. "We"re here too:· announced the computer. ··we know how to make money,"· gleefully roared the conglomerate. ··we can help you do that."" shot back the computer. And so they came in the sixties to the archaic world of books. as small publishers were absorbed right and left by big publishers who were in turn absorbed by conglomerates whose computers were humming with joy - the joy of digestion. Out in the cold were the writers (no longer necessary, because conglomerates owned film companies and could provide script writers) and the readers (a distinctly obsolete minority. Who needs readers when the ultimate goal is a four-million dollar movie?) . So bigger and bigger corporate empires published bigger and bigger books that usually mattered less and less and cost more and more. Then a strange thing began to happen. Smaller and smaller publishers came into being who had no computers to tell them they couldn"t make a profit on books published just for readers, and they began publishing more and better books. In the nautical field alone there are at least five successful maritime publishers issuing very good titles that the publishers of four-million-dollar books consider unsafe. This is because publishing attracts a strange breed of people who resent being told by com-
puters what to read and to publish. And then, just to confound columnists who rant on like this, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, a merger of three companies now owned by CBS (which also owns computers), last year reissued Walter Lord"s classic tale of the Tirnnic disaster. Superb photographs integrated with the text add immeasurably to the power of a book that is worthy of the most loving efforts of the smallest of publishers. Some exciting books are due later this year. Carlton M itchell"s Passage Eas1 (Norton) , twenty years out of print, describes through the vehicle of a small-boat transatlantic race the mysteries that separate the world of the sailor from that of the landsman. Norton is also republishing Sterling Hayden 's Wanderer with a new introduction and illustrations. Basil Greenhill and Ann Griffard have written Victorian and Edwardian Ships from Old Photographs which will be imported from Britain and published and distributed here by the Naval Institute Press. Wesleyan Univeris publishing the American Mari1inie Librarl' for Mystic Seaport. Such books as the R epublic :S Priva/e Navy (American privateers in the war of 1812) and Neil' England and !he Sea will be coming your way this fall. And England's Genesis Publications is offering a fine, limited edition of Captain Bligh 's logs from his voyages in HMS Bounty and HMS Pro1·idence, as well as Bank"s and Cook 's journals from the Endeavour. Prices range from S.150 to S.190. DOD
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