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Visionary Pragmatist: Sir Vincent Raven
Visionary Pragmatist Sir Vincent Raven North Eastern Railway Locomotive Engineer SIGNED COPY
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 29, 2025
The author has put an immense amount of meticulous and original research work into this book, which will make it a useful reference. However, he was badly let down by a publisher who seems to have spent nothing on editing or proof reading.
The primary interest in Sir Vincent Raven is surely in his outstanding achievements as a historically important locomotive engineer and how he rose to that position. However, the author rambled off into lengthy descriptions of such matters as Raven's daughter's wedding, with a detailed newspaper report listing her presents and so on. This particular gentle reader did not buy this (or any other!) book for that kind of information. It is light on the all-important technical details, and seems to have been written by a non-technical person doing his best to understand his subject. But most annoying to the reader is the average of about one error in spelling, in fact, in omission, or in repetition on almost every page of the book. That is what a good publisher pays an editor to do - to make the book more accurate and readable and to make the author and publisher look better.
The primary interest in Sir Vincent Raven is surely in his outstanding achievements as a historically important locomotive engineer and how he rose to that position. However, the author rambled off into lengthy descriptions of such matters as Raven's daughter's wedding, with a detailed newspaper report listing her presents and so on. This particular gentle reader did not buy this (or any other!) book for that kind of information. It is light on the all-important technical details, and seems to have been written by a non-technical person doing his best to understand his subject. But most annoying to the reader is the average of about one error in spelling, in fact, in omission, or in repetition on almost every page of the book. That is what a good publisher pays an editor to do - to make the book more accurate and readable and to make the author and publisher look better.
Displaying 1 of 1 review