Cindy Vallar's Blog, page 28

Review of The Trafalgar Chronicle New Series 3

The Trafalgar Chronicle: New Series 3: by Peter Hore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Trafalgar Chronicle explores new research about the Georgian navy (also known as Nelson’s Navy. Since the articles support a central theme for each edition, this latest issue focuses on women and the sea during this time period. As Margarette Lincoln points out in the opening essay, “Women and the Sea,” this topic was often overlooked until 1990 when women in the Royal Navy were finally permitted to serve at sea and Jo Stanley’s Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates across the Ages was published in 1995. This latest volume of The Trafalgar Chronicle “is an important step in furthering our understanding of women’s myriad connections with the sea.” (12)

The eighteen remaining articles cover a wide range of topics. Peter James Bowman’s “A Real-life Jane Austen Heroine and her Naval Hero” discusses the love story of Katherine Bisshopp and George Pechell. “Questing for Cuba Cornwallis, Nelson’s Afro-Caribbean Nurse” is Jo Stanley’s hunt to learn more about the woman who tended Horatio Nelson during his illness in Jamaica in 1780, and to understand why her minor role in his life has “been elevated into almost a heroine, and been so widely interpreted on the basis of so very little evidence.” (28) Kevin Brown examines prostitution and the navy in “Portsmouth Polls and Spithead Nymphs: Sexual Health in Nelson’s Navy.”

Using letters and correspondence, Heather Noel-Smith and Lorna M. Campbell explore the lives of three women – two mothers of midshipmen and Susan Pellew, the commander’s wife – in “‘I Shall be Anxious to Know . . .’: Lives of the Indefatigable Women.” Ellen Gill also references letters to show how women dealt with hardships and separation during war in “Letters Home: Trauma and the Cost of Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Naval Families.” During this period, soldiers were often transported overseas to fight and David Clammer examines the journeys that their wives experienced when traveling with their husbands in “Women All at Sea: Soldiers’ Wives aboard Naval Transports during the Napoleonic War.” Lucie Dutton’s “Utterly Charming and Adorable: Lady Nelson of the Silent Screen” takes a close look at why actress Ivy Close was chosen to play Fanny Nelson in Nelson: The Story of England’s Immortal Naval Hero (1918) and how Maurice Elvey crafted a love story with tense undercurrents.



Lily Style discusses “Four Female Ancestors: Life in Trade, Foreign Courts and Domesticity,” two of whom were Kitty Matcham (Horatio Nelson’s favorite sister) and Emma Hamilton (Nelson’s paramour). The latter and her mother are the focus of Geoff Wright’s “Emma, Lady Hamilton: The Untold Story,” where he explores how Emy Lyon became Lady Hamilton. Charles Fremantle’s “Lady Bentinck and the Tunis Slaves” is about a woman, dressed as a Royal Marine, participated in a mission to North Africa to recover Sicilian slaves. “Did Nelson Know Mary Anne Talbot? The Strange Story of Mary Anne Talbot” by Peter Turner demonstrates why this tale of another woman who dressed as a man cannot be true.

Marianne Kindgren and Birgitta Tingdal focus on a female smuggler who became entangled in Gotheburg’s last case of piracy in “Johanna Hård: The Story of a Swedish Piratess.” The Bank of England prosecuted a number of women whose punishment involved serving their sentences in Australia, which is the topic of Deirdre Palk’s “‘Going to the Bay in Utmost of Distress’: Women Convicts Being Transported to Australia 1803-1824.” Karen McAulay and Brianna Robertson-Kirkland demonstrate that Georgian women knew what was happening in politics and that they used the medium of music to convey this knowledge to others in “‘My Love to War is Going’: Women and Song in the Napoleonic Era.”

Each reader of The Trafalgar Chronicle will have their own favorite essays within this collection and I am no different. No matter a man’s rank or rating, men wanted to give their sweethearts mementos of their love. While officers could afford to bestow miniature portraits, those with lesser means left their women engraved coins, both of which are discussed in Sim Comfort’s “When You See Thee, Remember Me, Forget Me Not.” Particularly unique in the telling is Joe Callo’s “Television Interview with Emma, Lady Hamilton.” The question-and-answer format allows readers to gain a better understanding of this woman from her perspective, rather than how others tend to portray her. Normally, men went to sea and the females in their lives stayed home, but from 25 June 1796 to 1 September 1797, Betsey Fremantle lived at sea on several different ships. Tom Fremantle’s “The ‘Kidnap’ of Betsey Fremantle: A Captain’s Romance” tells the story of how this young refugee ended up on Inconstant, married the captain, and lived aboard warships until after she became pregnant and he was wounded.

The book includes one final essay – Sea Surgeons and the Barbers’ Company of London by Peter Willoughby – which doesn’t fit into the theme of women and the sea, yet it is equally interesting and important. Black and white images are found throughout the collection, and about one third of the way into the book is a color section of illustrations.

While this edition isn’t as absorbing as earlier volumes, the fact that it focuses on women makes this an important contribution to maritime history.




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Review of Lost in the Antarctic

Lost in the Antarctic: The Doomed Voyage of the Endurance by Tod Olson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Caught amid slabs of ice, the Endurance groaned and creaked as it was slowly squeezed tighter and tighter. The vessel had sheltered twenty-eight men for more than a year; it was only a matter of time before she broke apart. Far from home, the only place to go was the frozen Weddell Sea – a million square miles of ice. On 26 October 1915, there was no guarantee that they would survive.

In August 1914 two momentous events happened the same week in England: Britain declared war on Germany and Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew set sail for Antarctica. This was his third such journey, but this time he planned to cross 1,800 miles of land by dogsled. It would be a journey fraught with danger, especially since the night temperature could drop to -80 degrees and for three and a half months a year there is no sun. He selected twenty-eight men out of 5,000 to accompany him, including a longtime friend, two scientists, two doctors, a carpenter, two engineers, a storekeeper, a cook, an artist, and a photographer. Aside from the seventy dogs to haul the sleds, they took with them food, three lifeboats, film, and supplies. Upon Shackleton’s return to England, he planned to engage in a speaking tour and to write of his experience in order to pay the massive debts he accrued financing the expedition.

Part of Scholastic’s Lost series, this book opens with a photograph of Endurance’s crew and a cast of the characters readers meet in the story. Olson includes maps, a diagram of the ship, glossary, author’s note, sources, and end notes. Interspersed throughout the chapters are captioned photographs taken by Frank Hurley, the expedition’s photographer.

The intended audience for Lost in the Antarctic is children in grades three through eight, but some subject matter may not be appropriate for all readers as it involves the killing of seals, penguins, and the dogs. Yet this book is also a tale of how men work together to endure and survive desperation, isolation, and extreme conditions. Olson describes this ill-fated expedition with such vivid intensity that even on a hot day in Texas, this reader shivers. He pulls no punches, portraying the hardships endured with brutal honesty. The inclusion of Hurley’s pictures adds a realism that words alone cannot portray. Together they transport readers, young and old alike, back in time to a place few of us will ever visit.




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Review of Barons of the Sea

Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship by Steven Ujifusa

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


These were our Gothic cathedrals, our Parthenon; but monuments carved from snow. For a few brief years, they flashed their splendor around the world, then disappeared with the finality of the wild pigeon.

This quote from Samuel Eliot Morison opens the final chapter in this account of merchants, ships, and shipwrights of the nineteenth century in their quest for speed and profits. (339) Their designs were based on the “Baltimore clipper,” like Isaac McKim’s Ann McKim (1833), but with less drag, less rake, more speed, and more elegance and grace. They initially sailed to China to trade for tea, porcelain, silks, and spices. Later they ventured around the tip of South America to deliver goods to California after gold was discovered in 1848. Making money and delivering cargo faster than anyone else were these men’s primary objectives. In the process, they revolutionized global trade, transformed a remote outpost into a burgeoning region, and aided in the spread of opium.

First and foremost, this is a story about merchants like Warren Delano II, John Murray and Robert Bennet Forbes, and Abiel Abbot Low. They acquired assets that allowed them to deal in exports and imports. They owned the ships and oftentimes the cargoes they carried. They hired shipwrights like Donald McKay and John Willis Griffiths to build their ships, as well as those vessels’ captains: Charles Porter Low, Nathaniel Palmer, and Joshua Creesy to name a few.

It is also a story about the places and cultures to which their ships sailed. Initially, China was an insular country, the government unwilling to trade with Westerners until Jorge Alvares visited Canton in 1513. By the mid 1800s, merchants from many European countries and the United States were purchasing Chinese goods. Warren Delano II belonged to a good, established family, but he lacked money. When he ventured to China in 1833 as a young bachelor, he had two goals he wished to achieve. He wanted to acquire enough funds to make him independently wealthy – $100,000 that would require living in China for at least five years – and to become a member of the prestigious firm of Russell & Company. What he soon realized was that living in China was very different from living in America and it could quite dangerous for foreigners. He wasn’t permitted to learn Chinese. He had to operate according to many strict dictates. He had to live in a section of Canton in a compound allotted to those who brokered goods for export. Wives of these men, if they came, had to live in Macao, as they were never permitted on the mainland. One Chinese merchant headed the Cohong (a guild of traders) and was personally responsible for the foreign merchants. Wu Ping-Chien (whom Westerners called Houqua), mentored some of these foreigners, including Delano. While the Chinese had much to offer in the way of exports, Westerners had little to offer in return, except money and opium. The illegal importation of this addictive drug led to a shortfall of silver in China and many became addicts unwilling to work. Eventually the government intervened and Houqua was arrested. While the Americans tacitly acquiesced to China’s demands, the British did not and the First Opium War soon erupted.

Aside from the cultural and personal aspects of this account of the “barons of the sea,” this book is also a tale of the ships. The sooner merchant ships returned home to New York or Boston, the sooner the tea could be auctioned. This not only led to greater profits, but also increased a firm’s reputation. This is why men like Delano and Low sought ships with greater speed and cargo capacity. For example, when Oriental arrived in London in 1850 – the first Yankee clipper to do so – she did so in 97 days, a vast improvement from the usual six months which British ships normally took to go from China to London. Her cargo sold for $48,000, a vast sum when compared to the $10-$12 an average working man earned in one month.

Prior to this time period, ship design had remained fairly stable for 200 years. Ships that sailed to China and India were called “Indiamen” and a typical one averaged 175 feet in length, 30 feet in width, and possessed a deep draft and rounded topsides. Beginning in the 1830s, the shipwrights and merchants began to revolutionize the design to create Yankee clippers. But the men who built these vessels didn’t agree on what designs were best. Captain Nathaniel Palmer favored ships with sharp bows and flat bottoms that he believed would average 12-13 knots when laden with tea. John Willis Griffiths, who never went to sea, designed vessels with V-shaped bottoms because his draftsman’s mind believed this would make them faster. One of his ships, Sea Witch, traveled 264 miles each day for ten days during a monsoon. Her best single day’s distance was 302 miles.

These Yankee clippers underwent even more radical changes once the merchants turned their attention to the California trade. Donald McKay’s designs and skill turned the building of such ships into an art. Stag Hound, built in 1850 for the California runs, could carry 1,500 tons of cargo and her sails consisted of 9,500 square yards of canvas. She was the first of the extreme clippers. But McKay went on to design even bigger ones. Sovereign of the Seas’ tonnage exceeded 2,400 and she measured 252 feet in length, while the Great Republic as designed would carry 4,555 tons and be longer than today’s football field.

Memnon, one of Delano’s ships, traveled 15,000 miles from New York to San Francisco Bay in 123 days. Until then the journey around Cape Horn often took over 200; covered wagons leaving Independence, Missouri to go overland averaged six months. It didn’t take long before the various merchants began competing with one another. Their ships were “majestic clippers, flying before the wind like great birds of prey, their vast spreads of canvas stretchws taut, their deep sharp bows piercing wave after wave.” (6) In 1851 three clippers left New York bound for San Francisco. Captain Charles Low commanded N. B. Palmer, owned by the Lows and named for Captain Nathaniel Palmer, on her maiden voyage. Moses Grinnell’s Flying Cloud was captained by Josiah Creesy, whose wife served as his navigator. The third ship, Challenge, was owned by N. & G. Griswold and cost over $150,000 to build. She had three decks instead of the normal two and her masts rose more than 200 feet above the weather deck. Her captain was Robert Waterman. There could be only one winner, and the race became one that involved rough weather, major repairs at sea, sabotage, mutiny, and ended with the arrest of one of the captains and his first mate.

As with all things, though, the time for Yankee clippers ebbed. Fewer men wanted to earn their livings at sea. As California grew and developed, her citizens became more self-sufficient and no longer had need for ships to bring them necessaries. They could make or grow these items themselves and purchase them for far lower prices than the East Coast merchants charged. Confederate raiders took their toll on Northern shipping during the Civil War. Steam ships were becoming more and more plentiful. Finally, the sinking of SS Central America in 1857 proved fatal not only to the 420 male passengers and crew aboard, but also to the American economy. Lost during the hurricane was the nine tons of California gold and specie that she carried. The loss, valued at around $2,000,000, resulted in more than just a run on banks. Fewer and fewer ship owners could afford the beautiful, graceful vessels that had brought great wealth to men who became pillars of nineteenth-century American society and whose influence on our culture and politics lasted far into the next hundred years.

These are the stories that Steven Ujifusa weaves together in his book. He includes an inset of photographs, an appendix with ship and sail diagrams, a section of notes that double as a bibliography, and an index. He also defines unfamiliar terms at the bottom of the pages where the words occur. Barons of the Sea is informative, entertaining, and enthralling. It’s a voyage not to be missed, whether you’re fascinated with sailing ships, the tea trade or the gold rush, or just history in general.




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Review of Traits & Traitors

Traits & Traitors by Jane Glatt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Having escaped the pirates once, Dagrun Lund and Calder Rahmson flee their safe haven just before the Ghost Ship attacks a nearby port. They must get to Tarklee and warn the Fair Seas Treaty Alliance (FSTA) of the destruction of waterfront warehouses, docks, and shipyards, but to accomplish this they must first learn to trust each. Their superior, Spymaster Joosep Sepp, has never permitted Intelligencers to work together or to know each other’s Traits. Through trial and error Dag and Calder use their Traits – hers, Unseen, and his, Luck – to piece together the puzzle. It began with the stealing of ships and amassing weaponry. Now, Joosep is held prisoner by Tarmo Holt, the current Grand Freeholder of the FSTA and a man who is in league with the pirates. The destruction of the shipyards means no lumber to build more ships and the burnt warehouses warn of insufficient stores to feed people in the future. But how are these various threads woven together and why? Dag and Calder may be the only two Intelligencers who can thwart this wicked alliance.

Gustav Gunnarson is a novice Intelligencer, but he survived his first mission to spy on Holt. With Joosep and his assistant missing, Gustav is uncertain what to do and who to trust. It’s definitely not Vilis, another trainee, who Gustav spies with a sheaf of papers taken from Joosep’s office. Gustav doesn’t believe Vilis, and wishing he knew who to trust, he becomes an itinerant peddler walking the streets of Tarklee to garner snippets of information. If he can discover what Holt is up to – quite likely since his Trait is Charisma and people happily converse with him – he might find Joosep. While in disguise, he happens upon the pirate captain and Dag’s twin sister meeting with Holt. Gunnar doesn’t understand everything discussed, but realizes there is discord between the cohorts and that Holt pays the pirates to track down Calder’s family. They can do what they like with the captives, as long as their kidnapping brings Calder to Holt.

Traits & Traitors is the sequel to Pirates & Privateers and is storytelling at its best. Glatt drops us into the midst of the action and holds us captive until the end of the tale. Just when you catch your breath, another twist pulls you right back into the streets of Tarklee where you scurry beside Dag, Calder, and Gunnar to unearth more clues that will aid in Holt’s downfall. The characters are compelling and the story unfolds like an intricately woven tapestry in a distant land. The primary adventure is satisfactorily resolved, sometimes with gutwrenching surprises, but tantalizing subplots will entice readers back for the next installment of The Intelligencers.




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Review of The REAL Story of Pirates

The Real Story of Pirates: Fun Facts, Tall Tales, and Awesome Activities by Gregory B Edmonds

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One day not so long ago, a pirate, who visits hospitals to entertain children, asked an artist friend to draw a picture for his young audience to color. Talented artist that he is, Gregory Edmonds drew one picture and then another and another until an idea sparked – much like what happens when a pirate places a slow match to a gun’s touch hole to fire on a rich treasure ship. To whet young appetites with “a life-long interest in learning, vocabulary, and imagination” Mr. Edmonds offers up the first in what he hopes will become a series of books where youngsters can read alone or with their parents. (5) What better way to entice more boys and girls into our scurvy ranks of pirate apprentices than with a book about real pirates?

Within the covers of this fact-filled activity book, ye be learning about pirate history and notorious sea dogs like Bartholomew Roberts, Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Barbarossa, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Henry Morgan. There be “Color Me” pages that depict pirates and the tools of our trade: a ship, weapons, and a possibles bag for example. (If ye not be knowing what that last item is, reading the book be a good way to find the answer.) There is also a Pirate Treasure Maze (with a twist) and a Word Puzzle (to see if ye might make a good lookout for spying those galleons laden with pieces of eight). If ye dare, try answering the quiz, Fact or Tall Tale? (If ye get stuck, the answers be found near the end of the book.) For pirates having special days, your parents can be after studying all about hosting a Pirate Party. If there be a word ye don’t understand, look it up in a glossary of pirate words. (Ye might be interested in learning more about Mr. Edmonds on the facing page.) Ye can also explore words ye might hear every day, but that originally belonged to those of us who sail the seas in Do You Talk Like a Pirate?

A few statements might have some readers scratching their heads. Port Royal is a city on an island, but is not an island itself. (8) Blackbeard, or Edward Thache, served as a privateer under Queen Anne, rather than Queen Elizabeth, and instead of all the citizens of Charles Town, ‘twas a select few whom he held for ransom when he blockaded the South Carolina port. (13-14, 17)

This book be great fun to read, learn, and do. Being the pirates’ scrivener for nearly a score of years, my peepers be not as sharp as they once were and I commend Mr. Edmonds for his use of white space and BIG print. Both make the pages easy to read. His suggestion to copy (or trace) the Color Me and puzzle pages is an excellent suggestion since it allows pirate apprentices to use them again and again. (For young pirates with less dexterity, ye might enlarge the Color Me pages so they can color within fine lines.) Another noteworthy tidbit be the sentence in his Notes for Parents: “Pirates were outlaws, thieves, and (sometimes) killers.” (4) This truth be often omitted from pirate books for children and causes a dilemma for parents. Mr. Edmonds provides discussion topics that can help to resolve this.

The REAL Story of Pirates be written for youngsters of at least nine years; in truth, ’tis a book pirates of all ages who like to color and learn will enjoy. Even I found a few treasures, such as the intriguing origins of eating with me elbows on the table. Me favorites were the puzzles; they be challenging, but not overly so.

This book is a wonderful and entertaining introduction to pirates. The narrative doesn’t talk down to children; together with the puzzles and coloring, it entices one’s curiosity. The REAL Story of Pirates is a great way for parents and children to learn and read together.




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Review of Leopard

Leopard by Michael Aye

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The seventh book in The Fighting Anthonys series opens with a captain from Grand Cayman complaining to Vice Admiral Lord Gilbert Anthony about the audacious American privateer who sails right into Georgetown Harbor and takes the captain and others prisoner, and then ransoms their ships back to them, minus everything but their hulls. He dares to give them a certificate to show to other privateers exempting them from being taken again during the next forty-two days.
There is little Gil or the Royal Navy can do, since they are already stretched to the limit, but he sets sail with a small fleet to make life miserable for these American upstarts.

Captain Sir Gabriel Anthony finds himself betwixt wind and water, for overstepping his authority, risking his ship and men, in an adventure that took them far from the Caribbean. Vowing to ruin Gabe, Admiral Sir Winston Kirkstatter writes a scathing letter to the Admiralty, then sets sail aboard the prize warship Gabe captured, leaving Gabe to wait to see what his fate will be. In the meantime, Gil can’t afford to lose either Gabe or his men, so Trident is sent to Antigua for repairs. Along the way, they happen upon flotsam, dead bodies floating in the water, and the jury-rigged HMS Leopard, a vessel providing escort to a merchant convoy. At the time of the attack, those aboard Leopard didn’t know that Spain had declared war on England in support of her ally, France, who had joined with the Americans in their fight for independence. The Dons decimated the convoy and killed or wounded the more senior officers aboard Leopard.

Upon reaching Antigua, the crews of Trident and Leopard band together to staff the latter and Gabe is ordered to seek out his brother to let him know that the Dons are allied with the traitorous Americans. This information is then combined with news from the ransomed merchant captain about a fleet of French warships carrying 6,000 troops to aid the rebels in their fight and the growing meance of American privateers on the prowl. Gil and his officers seek out the enemy, but finding them isn’t an easy task in the Caribbean.

The story, which takes place in 1780, includes several nail-biting sea battles and an unsuspected dupe used by a spy, as well as a wedding and an appearance by Rear Admiral Lord Cornwallis. Two new lieutenants join the series: one is the son of a Scottish lord and a Creek princess; the other is a black naval officer, who is referred to numerous times before finally making his appearance halfway through the book. The resolution of Gabe’s quandary is deftly resolved with a twist of fate that has a profound effect on Admiral Kirkstatter.

Rather than a tale seamlessly woven together, Leopard is more a series of vignettes sewn together, which at times gives the story a disjointed feeling. It also disrupts the cohesive flow from one event to the next, making it hard for readers to connect with the characters. The book lacks a good proofing, which would have caught instances like “Shouting down to the gun deck, Gabe shouted to Lieutenant Bufford to be ready” (tells the reader twice that Gabe has to shout), or “Captain Davy, who’d had little more than a quick honeymoon with Ariel before weighing anchor”, (incomplete sentence), as well as occasional missing or misspelled words. (161 and 176, respectively)

The shining moments in the story are Michael Aye’s original poetry, which is presented at the beginning of each of the three parts of this book, and his depiction of the Great Hurricane of 1780, which is estimated to have been a Category 5 storm with winds in excess of 200 miles per hour. Not only do readers witness the storm while aboard the navy’s ships, but they also get to experience it from the perspectives of Gil’s and Gabe’s families and friends who go on a picnic the day the hurricane hits. The poem “Oh Blow You Hurricane” perfectly captures the mood of what transpires in the story.




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Review of Tudor & Stuart Seafarers

Tudor and Stuart Seafarers: The Emergence of a Maritime Nation, 1485-1707 by James Davey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In conjunction with the opening of a new gallery at the National Maritime Museum, this book highlights some of the many artifacts found in the Tudor and Stuart Seafarers Gallery and explores key aspects of seafaring during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to Dr. Kevin Fewster, the Director of the Royal Museums Greenwich, “By looking anew at events like the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the English settlement of North America, some familiar misconceptions might be overturned and difficult moments in the nation’s past be brought into sharper focus.” (7) Until the late 1500s, England’s primary focus was on itself. Only after this point in time did the English expand outward in search of opportunities and adventure.

The exhibit encompasses the years 1485 through 1707, and shows the changes to and effects on ships and seafarers. At the same it demonstrates how sea exploration and colonial expansion impacted trade, warfare, policy, art, music, and popular culture to forge a national identity. Initial territorial and economic expansion, which became exceedingly important after 1550, was principally wrought by individuals rather than backed by the government.

Twelve chapters examine England’s evolution into a maritime nation during this period of 222 years.

• ‘New Worlds’: 1485-1505 by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
• Adventurers: England Turns to the Sea, 1550-80 by James Davey
• The Spanish Armada and England’s Conflict with Spain, 1585-1604 by David Scott
• Building a Navy by J. D. Davies
• Using the Seas and Skies: Navigation in Early-Modern England by Megan Barford and Louise Devoy
• Encounter and Exploitation: The English Colonization of North America, 1585-1615 by Laura Humphreys
• Of Profit and Loss: The Trading World of Seventeenth-Century England by Robert J. Blyth
• The British Civil Wars, 1638-53 by Elaine Murphy
• Life at Sea by Richard J. Blakemore
• The Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Dutch Wars by Rebecca Rideal
• A Sea of Scoundrels: Pirates of the Stuart Era by Aaron Jaffer
• Art and the Maritime World, 1550-1714 by Christine Riding

Complimenting each chapter are objects from the museum’s collection – charts, paintings, artifacts, ship models, and publications – that provide insightful glimpses into the topic being discussed. Some illustrations merit double-page spreads; all pictures are in full color. Captions identify these objects, but these aren’t always enlightening. For example, a teapot is labeled as being late 17th century, but readers are left to wonder why this particular teapot was selected and what its provenance is.

The contributors are identified as “twelve leading scholars” in the introduction and are quite knowledgeable about their subjects, but no biographical credentials are included for readers seeking to know more about the writers. (12)

The gallery’s patron and the museum’s director provide forewords to the book and the editor pens both the introduction and one of the essays. Notes, a bibliography, and an index conclude the book. In between and woven throughout the chapters are boxed highlights of people whose impact on English maritime history should be known, but may not be. Some names are well known, such as Tisquantum (Squanto), William Shakespeare, John Cabot, Samuel Pepys, Pocahontas, and Gráinnie O’Malley. Readers may not be familiar with others – Diego, Lord Effingham, Jahangir, or Richard Deane – while a few aren’t usually associated with British seafaring, such as Amerigo Vespucci, Vasco da Gama, and Michiel de Ruyter.

The book tackles a number of sensitive subjects – such as the slave trade and the spread of disease among indigenous peoples – in part because violence and exploitation went hand in hand with the events. Rather than omit them from the historical narrative, the contributors choose to incorporate them to help readers understand why people of the past acted as they did. What the book does not do is judge; instead, readers are provided with a well-rounded explanation from which they can decide for themselves who and what were good or bad, right or wrong.

Chapter 11 will be of particular interest to readers of Pirates & Privateers. During the Tudor and Stuart periods many people were called “pirates” and pillaging ships was even encouraged at times by people in authority. Piracy played a key role in early English history and didn’t cease to be a problem until the third decade of the seventeenth century. Among the topics explored here are women’s roles in domestic piracy, merchant reprisals, privateering, the Barbary corsairs (both attacks on places like Baltimore, Ireland and Englishmen who became renegadoes, such as John Ward), and the buccaneers (Henry Morgan, William Dampier, and Henry Avery). To my surprise, one man not mentioned in connection with the renegadoes is Sir Henry Mainwaring.

Tudor & Stuart Seafarers is a highly readable and entertaining book, and it’s impossible to come away from it without learning something new.




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Review of The Lost Story of the Ocean Monarch

The Lost Story of the Ocean Monarch by Gill Hoffs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Water and fire. Two elements – one of which will extinguish the other – except when the fire is aboard a wooden ship and the water is all around her. Then you are faced with little hope for escape and must decide whether to drown or burn to death.

This was the tragedy nearly 400 men, women, and children – seventy of whom were under the age of 14 – faced the day they set sail from Liverpool, England that fateful day in August 1848. Within a few hours, their ship sank off the coast of Llandudno, Wales.

The Ocean Monarch was bound for Boston and built by Donald McKay just the year before. She had three decks and was considered far safer than the coffin ships that carried many immigrants. Life boats weren’t required, although a couple were carried. What firefighting equipment she had consisted of a dozen buckets and a water pump that wasn’t up to snuff. By the time the fire was discovered, there was little anyone could do and nowhere for most people to go until other ships arrived to help.

Those who boarded the Ocean Monarch came from a variety of backgrounds. Some were Irish emigrants seeking a new homeland. Others were tourists returning from their travels. A handful possessed money and stature. The majority worked for a living or were penniless. Nearly half of them would not survive. A number of the passengers are introduced by name and followed as events unfold, such as the Dows, who were newly married; Nathaniel Southworth, a well-known miniaturist; James Fellows, a watchmaker and jeweler; and Thomas Henry, who expressly waited to sail on this ship because he knew her captain. There was also a man who abandoned his wife to run off with another man’s wife. Others are mentioned for something they did, such as a stewardess, whose name is unknown, who sacrificed her life to prevent gunpowder from exploding which would have made the tragedy even worse.

But this is more than just the story of those aboard the burning ship. It is also about her rescuers, including members of the Brazilian navy, exiled French royalty, and a man who had rescued people from another shipwreck. One of the captains had even served under Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson. Then there are the pilots and a rumor of a possible murder.

In twelve chapters, Hoffs explores events and people before, during, and after the fire. She includes some black-and-white photographs, an epilogue, and personal note, as well as appendices that provide a chronology of the corpses and details about them, locations of grave sites and inquests, and a list of medals. In addition, there is a list of names of passengers, stewards, stewardesses, the captain and crew, and some who were aboard other vessels and came to the doomed ship’s aid. A select bibliography and index complete the text. Interspersed throughout the narrative are firsthand accounts and newspaper reports of what happened that day and in the days that followed.

What becomes clear in reading this story is that this travesty need not have been as horrific as it ended up being and that despite the passing of more than a century and a half, there still is no concrete proof as to how the fire started. In explaining how she came to write this story, Hoffs also demonstrates the role social behavior played in the events. She deftly shows the chaos and confusion that resulted from the fire, and her words paint a gruesome image of what the victims endured. (She does include a warning note of what pages to skip for readers who might be squeamish.) Rather than focus on just the microcosm of the ship, she elaborates on what was happening in the world at the time. Yet she also leaves readers with many questions that were never clearly answered by the inquests or investigators. By the end of the book, she does share that her research enabled her to identify six nameless victims and what happened to known survivors.

Perhaps not as gripping a tale as Hoffs’ earlier book, The Lost Story of the William & Mary, nor as clear-cut as to why the Ocean Monarch is a “lost” tale, The Lost Story of the Ocean Monarch is still an important contribution to collections focusing on shipwrecks and emigrant stories.




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Review of Pirates in History and Popular Culture edited by Antonio Sanna

Pirates in History and Popular Culture by Antonio Sanna

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Pirates. Far more than the dastardly criminals of yesterday and today, they evoke immediate imagery in our brains. We link them to a host of things that have nothing to do with real pirates, yet the connection evokes a memory, such as a recent commercial for a migraine drug where a mother and daughter can finally play pirate. This book delves into this world, exploring historical pirates and their cultural allure.

Divided into four sections, the first five essays focus on various aspects of “Pirates in History.” Antonio Sanna, the book’s editor, opens with “Historical and Fictional Pirates: A Review,” where he traces the historical origins of pirates to introduce readers to the topic and what to expect within the book’s pages, with particular emphasis on pirates – those who robbed, assaulted, and murdered victims at sea – during the buccaneering and golden ages of piracy (1660-1730). He also examines the evolution of literary pirates, beginning with the two most famous contemporary works of the period, The Buccaneers of America (1678) and A General History of the Pyrates (1724), to more recent depictions in novels, such as those of Rafael Sabatini, and in film.

In “Piratical Societies as the Blueprint for Social Utopia” Clint Jones argues that from the pirates’ successful dominance of the seafaring world has grown a utopian mythology that allows us to set aside the irredeemable aspects of their behavior in favor of an ideal society not bound by the socio-economic inequality in which they and we reside. They established a society outside the one in which their victims lived, providing their comrades with an alternative to the world from which they came at a time known as the Age of Enlightenment. To support this argument he examines piratical articles of agreement and the pirate utopia of Libertalia (also known as Libertatia).

The third essay in this grouping is Christopher Ketcham’s “A Pirate Business Model.” He demonstrates how pirates implemented what we define as common business practices to achieve success: goal setting, project management, risk management, and team building. Then he suggests how modern companies might use this piratical approach to conduct their business.

Nick Marsellas examines a subset of the pirate community in “Swashbuckling Sexuality: The Problem with Queer Pirates.” In the overall scheme of society, all pirates can be classed as a minority group because of their preference to live free of the state. Some pirates took this revolutionary behavior a step further in their sexual relationships. After reviewing the scholarly research on this subject, he argues that while some of these relationships were consensual, others were rapes and ponders whether that violence negates defining the relationship as queer.

The final essay in this first section is “‘The Boy-Sublime’: Sir Lionel Lindsay and Piracy” by Jayson Althofer and Brian Musgrove. Their case study explores how a boy captivated by his reading of Treasure Island and the world of pirates impacted the art, literature, and politics of this Australian man at a time when his country was becoming a formal nation.

Turning away from the historical pirate, the pirates in the second section of essays concern “Pirates in Literature.” Joan Passey leads off with “Sea-Wolves, Smugglers and Seascapes: Captain Cruel Coppinger and Criminality in Cornwall.” Here she separates folklore from history to demonstrate how maritime outlawry played a key role in Cornish identity during the nineteenth century. To illustrate her point, she focuses on the legendary smuggler, pirate, and wrecker Cruel Coppinger.

Minke Jonk explores a Victorian novel written by William Clark Russell in “Piratical Identity, Antarctic Solitude and Stolen Treasure in The Frozen Pirate.” Published in 1887, Russell combined romance and the supernatural to craft a story that both condemns and condones piracy.

Another essay that examines Victorian pirate literature is Eurydice Da Silva’s “Pirates and Orphans in Literature: From Victorian Boys’ Books to James Barrie’s Peter Pan.” She begins with the pirate histories written by Alexandre Exquemelin, Charles Ellms, and Daniel Defoe before delving into the fictional tales of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, John Meade Falkner’s Moonfleet, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, and R. M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island. She demonstrates these tales where orphans play key roles appeared at a time when the notion of family was being questioned and the British Empire was under threat.

The romance genre has long been criticized, yet is one of the bestselling and most prolific literature types published. During the 20th century, pirates were extremely popular romantic heroes and Racheal Harris explores their depiction in “Really Romantic? Pirates in Romantic Fiction.” Using ten pirate novels published between 1972 and 2015, she focuses on tales where male pirates are the heroes to discuss plot devices and character tropes. She also looks at why pirate romances aren’t as popular as they once were.

Antonio Sanna also contributes an essay in this section: “‘Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum’: Representations of Drunkenness in Literary and Cinematic Narratives on Pirates.” Alcohol and pirates have long shared a connection, and Sanna provides a historical overview of rum before examining its presence in various publications between the 1700s and today to determine the truth behind the piratical love of this beverage. In addition to literary representations, he delves into such portrayals in film to connect this section of the narrative to part three.

The next section studies “Pirates in Cinema and on TV.” Michael Charlton explores “The Image of the Pirate in Adaptations of The Adventures of Tintin,” a series that first appeared in the 1940s in the comics, then was adapted for television in 1991 and for the movies by Steven Spielberg two decades later.

“Masculine Ideal/Cultural Treasure: Long John Silver in Treasure Planet” by Sue Matheson focuses on Disney’s portrayal of this memorable pirate in the 2002 Treasure Planet and his role in helping Jim Hawkins become a man. She opens with Alexandre Exquemelin’s depiction of pirates in his narrative, Bucaniers of America, as well as Disney’s first adaptation of Stevenson’s novel in 1950.

Two other notorious pirates are discussed in the next two essays: Tiago A. M. Sarmento’s “‘What would the world be like without Captain Hook?’: A Freudian Analysis of Our Love for (Anti-)Villains” and Susanne Zhanial’s “‘Take what you can . . .’: Disney’s Jack Sparrow and His Indebtedness to the Pirate Genre.” The former uses two of Sigmund Freud’s theories to review the various portrayals of Captain Hook, whose past as a good character gives way to his subsequent portrayal as a villain. The latter essay compares Sparrow to three pirate portrayals of the past: the Byronic hero, the Victorian villain, and the Hollywood swashbuckler.

The last entry in this section is Jessica Walker’s “Civilization’s Monsters: The Doomed Queer Anti-Imperialism of Black Sails.” This television series is a prequel to Treasure Island and takes place in 1715. She demonstrates how heterosexual portrayals are linked to greed and abuse in the Colonies, whereas queer relationships mirror the freedom and adventure of pirate society.

The final section of this volume looks at “Pirates in Other Media.” Alexandra V. Leonzini opens with an essay entitled “The Servant, the Sinner and the Savior: The Pirate in Early Nineteenth Century Italian Opera.” At the beginning of this time frame, operatic plots dealt with the hero’s rescue of the heroine from Barbary corsairs. By the end of the period, pirates were equated with revolutionaries. This essay explores how politics and peoples’ circumstances influenced these portrayals over time.

Teaching evolution in schools created quite a debate in more recent years, and one response to this was the establishment of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (or Pastafarianism). This religious parody introduced pirates into the debate and Jeff Parish examines this aspect of piratical pop culture in “The Humorous, Sarcastic Case of the Pastafarian Pirates.”

Pirates have long been a part of childhood and it is this imagery that William Newton discusses in “‘Gay and brisk’: Constructing a Pirate’s Image for Children.” In addition to presenting a study of these representations, he proposes how museums might interpret these pirates in ways that will make sense to children of the 21st century.

While film, art, and literary representations are the norm when looking at portrayals of pirates in our daily lives, these rogues can be found in other areas of entertainment. These are the focus of the book’s last two essays. Nicholas Moll considers the pirates that populate a board game in “Being a Pirate: The Use and Purpose of a Piratical Setting in Rum & Bones,” while Artur Skweres looks at how they are portrayed in Japanese anime in “Pirate as Homo Ludens: Analyzing the Humorous Outlaw at Play in One Piece.”

Each of the twenty essays in this collection concludes with a section of notes (if any) and a list of works cited. There is also an index that provides easy access to a topic.

Pop culture changes over time, thus altering how we view pirates and their place in the world. The essays show these changes and introduce us to less familiar portrayals in an ever-increasing world where minorities play equally important roles as majorities. In the case of pirates, this is particularly true, for they have always been a minority when compared to society as a whole, even though their impact on our lives has been significant even 300 years after they threatened shipping during the most prolific period in piratical history. Readers need not be well-versed in the historical aspects of this period; the essays provide sufficient grounding for anyone to comprehend the matter under discussion. Some readers may find discussed topics uncomfortable, but the essays broaden our understanding and perhaps help us reexamine how we view real and fictional pirates.

Most of us can spout examples of where and how pirates have invaded our daily lives, but few of us are familiar with the full spectrum of their portrayals in pop culture. This is what makes this volume an intriguing and informative addition to libraries that focus on piracy.




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Review of Darlene Marshall's What the Parrot Saw

What the Parrot Saw by Darlene Marshall

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Blackmailed by a brothel madam, Captain Matt St. Armand acquires a package that needs safekeeping. One might expect this to be boxed cargo of some type, but this package turns out to be a scribbler named Oliver Woodruff, who has a penchant for annoying Americans with his antislavery views. Matt agrees to take him to Nassau, but only if he does as he’s told and isn’t too annoying. After all, the Prodigal Son carries only two things – crew and cargo, and Oliver hasn’t a clue about sailing a schooner. That makes him just about worthless to Matt . . . but his manner of speech and style of dress spark a kernel of an idea that may alter Matt’s thinking.

Captain St. Armand’s scrutiny makes Oliver decidedly uncomfortable, but what choice does he have. If he doesn’t escape the island, he’s likely to be shot – a reality that nearly comes to fruition when he accompanies the notorious sea rover back to his ship. He’s not exactly certain what duties his assignment as “cabin boy” entail, but from St. Armand’s languid perusals, Oliver has no intention of being placed in a compromising situation. While his tongue tends to speak before his thoughts warn against doing so, Oliver isn’t stupid and it doesn’t take long for him to discover one of St. Armand’s secrets.

When St. Armand orders a merchant ship to heave to on the pretense of making a trade, Oliver is surprised when he’s ordered to accompany the boarding party. That’s when he learns another of St. Armand’s secrets – one that could get them all killed. Oliver’s interactions with the pirates, with their newly acquired cargo, and his intervention when one of the captured crew members tries to attack St. Armand, demonstrate that Oliver has the gumption needed for a special, but dangerous, mission. That he is an English gentleman whose family owns a successful cotton mill further convinces St. Armand that Oliver is just the man to help them in Florida. Having come to the Caribbean for one last adventure before assuming his duties at home, Oliver throws caution to the wind and accepts Matt’s proposal. Their weeks of training and planning bear unexpected fruit, but no amount of preparation equips him for the torture and betrayal he experiences when the mission goes awry.

The adage “Never judge a book by its cover” could well be used to describe this story based on the above description. This is a romance set in 1839, but it’s not what a reader will expect in spite of it being typical of the genre. Time and again Marshall interweaves humor, drama, and suggestive, sometimes explicit, overtones in a way that can leave you feeling decidedly uncomfortable or chuckling at the repartee. Marshall also defies tradition in opting to present Oliver as a beta male, although this move makes it difficult to connect with his character at first. Halfway through he becomes more personable, the mark of good character growth.

Overall this is a good story, but two weaknesses stand out. First, several scenes feel less developed than they should be to really connect with the reader. Second, recovering from the betrayal occurs too quickly. The jail scenes bring home the brutality of slavery, as well as the danger both the runaway slaves and those who help them to freedom endure. Marshall’s character description of Matt St. Armand as a captain and a slave is stellar, but weaker when Matt returns home to England.

What does the parrot see? You must read the book to find out. Be forewarned: Roscoe the parrot, who is the ship’s cat, is a scene-stealer in this fourth book in Marshall’s High Seas series.




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