REVIEWS relations with his crew, he was sometimes warm and friendly, sometimes cold, distant and rude, and the crew never knew which captain they would encounter on a given day. Crockett's recollection is replete with expressions of mixed admiration and detestation with respect to the captain. Fair Wind and Plenty of It is a fastreading and enjoyable yarn. I was disappointed that so little was written about the latter part of the voyage, especially details that might give some understanding of why things were apparently running more smoothly toward the end. Captain Moreland and Picton Castle have gone on to complete a third circumnavigation and have recently embarked on yet ano ther, so one must conclude that the voyage recounted here by Rigel Crockett led to lessons that were well learned. CAPTAlN
appear on stage in life rafts, lighthouses, forecastles, pubs, stokeholds, and Arctic whalers. In addition to the historiography and a useful timeline, Richter analyzes each of O'Neill's maritime plays. The book is wellillusrrated with rare photographs of the playwright and relevant vessels, and even an image of O 'Neill's AB certificate. This
HAL SUTPHEN
Ki lmarnock, Virginia
Eugene O'Neill and Dat Ole Davi/ Sea: Maritime Influences in the Life and Works of Eugene O'Neill, by Robert A. Richter (Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT, 2004, 2 l 5pp, photos, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-939510-97-9; $24.95hc) In the wake of Dana and Melville, Eugene O'Neill left an upper class, educated family in 1909 to spend rwo years on ships and in sailor towns. Having spent a portion of his childhood in New London, Connecticut, he returned from sea to New London, New York City, and then to Cape Cod to write what would become America's most famous maritime plays, including Bound East for Cardiff ( 1914) and The Hairy Ape (1921). He went on to be the only American playwright ever to win the Nobel Prize for literature (1936) . In Eugene O'Neill and Dat Ole Davi! Sea, Robert Richter delivers an invaluable resource, collecting O 'Neill's maritime connections and influences. Richter shows O'Neill writing within the context of World War I, SS Titanic, the transition from sail to steam, the decline of whaling, and the evolution of historic maritime communities. Richter relied heavily on a few sources but clears up debated questions and shares fascinating anecdotes. He reveals the people on whom O 'Neill based his fictional characters: individuals who
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book is a necessary companion for anyone reading or performing the plays of Eugene O'Neill-a playwright who, as Richter teaches us, found his foremost inspiration from the ocean. RICHARD KrNG
St Andrews, Scotland
Millionaires, Mansions, and Motor Yachts: An Era of Opulence, by Ross MacTaggart (W W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 2004, 256pp, photos, ISB N 0393-05762-3; $59.95) The author of The Golden Century: Classic Motor Yachts, 1830-1930 is back with another idiosyncratic, gossipy, heavily-illustrated coffee-table book on the subject of long-ago luxury power yachts and their owners. As the juicy tide indicates, MacTaggart carries on our ancient, guilty fasci nation with the nautical pleasures and frustrations of the upper crust. Yet, thankfully, the book is not all fluff. Anyone seeking some facts abo ut semi-grand yachting berween 1895 and 1930 will want to take
a look. In nearly 200 pages of text and at least that many photographs, MacTaggart presents eight mostly feckless, usually spendthrift, tycoons who, when not tempting bankruptcy or dodging taxes, could sometimes behave pretty badly. Alfred duPont seems to have been every naval architect's and interior designer's worst nightmare, while Thomas W Lawson obviously enjoyed poking his fingers into the eyes of whichever establishment figure was in the neighborhood. (I have some argument with MacTaggart's interpretation of Lawson's bizarre, bullying effort to race for the America's Cup in 1901.) MacTaggart has an interesting strategy: pick eight owners and exam ine every available facet of their nautical and other acquisitions. Besides the rwo tycoons mentioned earlier, these owners are George Francis Fabyan, Eugene Tompkins, Harry Darlington, John Dietrich Spreckels, Emily Roebling Cadwalader, and William C. Rands. We learn about their money, yachts, marriages, and much more. When some arguably irrelevant information turns up, like the history of San Diego's Hotel del Coronado in the chapter on Spreckels, the reader might be a little offended if the author weren't having such a good time leading the side tour. One disappointment is the book's undisciplined, often dull photo-album design. MacTaggart went to tremendous effort to collect photographs-an effort he is not shy about describing-yet there simply are too many look-alike, so-so pictures of engine rooms, heads, launchings, gaudy owners' cabins, skimpy crew quarters, and clipper bows. Many photographs are reproduced a little darker than was probably intended by the photographer, but my chief complaint is that many of them could have been replaced by plans. Surprisingly, only a half-dozen or so sets of plans are printed in this entire book. Designers' drawings would have been especially welcome as complements to the handful of owners' preliminary sketches; the reader wants tto know how the designer worked out the dletails. Obviously amticipating this criticism , MacTaggart apollogizes that many plans were either too hard or too expensive
SEA HISTOmY 111 , SUMMER 2005