Great Stories of the Sea and Ships

by Newell Convers Wyeth (Editor), Peter Hurd (Illustrator)

This collection of sea stories contains classics from all ages and nations—from Homer's description of the raft of Odysseus to a vivid report by Jack London of a ferryboat collision in San Francisco harbor.

Here are tales of proud sailing ships from Herman Melville, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Charles Kingsley, Victor Hugo and James Fenimore Cooper. Heroic naval battles—Trafalgar, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the fight of the Monitor and the Merrimac and John Paul Jones's capture of the Serapis—are included, as well as historic accounts of the discovery of America and the settlement of Florida. Legends and superstitions are made real by Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson.Here are whaling yarns, tales of castaways and smugglers, and thrilling adventures on the seven seas—from Iceland to Cape Horn. Here, indeed, are "great stories of the sea and ships!"

N.C. Wyeth says, "I feel secure in asserting that there is hardly a page in the present volume but what contains a vivid spark which will ignite and explode into pure brilliance some dormant joy which is linked to the sea. One will find, in these stories, its ineffable beauty, it's dynamic and ruthless power, and its teeming romance."

N.C. Wyeth, one of America's most famous artists and illustrators, was born in Needham, Massachusetts, in 1882. His many well-known murals include those in the Missouri state capitol and altar panels for the National Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, D.C. He has also illustrated many children's classics and adventure stories. A student of Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth was the teacher of his son Andrew Newell Wyeth.

Peter Hurd, American painter, was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 194,. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and worked as an apprentice to N.C. Wyeth. He is noted for is realistic painting and illustrations.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Adventure, Literature

431 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Newell Convers Wyeth was an American artist and illustrator. He was a pupil of Howard Pyle during the Golden Age of Illustration.

During his lifetime, Wyeth created more than 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books, twenty-five of them for the Scribner Classics, for which he is best known. The first of these, Treasure Island, was one of his masterpieces and the proceeds paid for his studio. Wyeth was a realist painter at a time when the camera and photography began to compete with his craft. Sometimes seen as melodramatic, his illustrations were designed to be understood quickly. Wyeth, who was both a painter and an illustrator, understood the difference, and said in 1908, "Painting and illustration cannot be mixed—one cannot merge from one into the other."

He is the father of Andrew Wyeth and the grandfather of Jamie Wyeth, both well-known American painters.

Reviews

[Kyle K]

The Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen -

The Fight in the Foretop by James Boyd -

Collision at Sea by Frank T. Bullen -

The Voyage of 1492 by Christopher Columbus -

The Wreck of the Royal Caroline by James Fenimore Cooper -

Death at Sea by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. -

North-Wester by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. -

Three Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe -

Dantè's Escape from the Château d'If by Alexander Dumas -

The Specksioneer by Elizabeth Gaskell -

How Captain John Ribault Planted a Colony in Florida by Richard Hakluyt

The Raft of Odysseus by Homer -

The Devil-Fish by Victor Hugo -

An Imprisoned Thunderstorm by Victor Hugo -

The Phantom Island by Washington Irving -

The Iron-Clads by Mary Johnston -

How Amyas Threw His Sword Into the Sea by Charles Kingsley -

Fog by Jack London -

Iceland Fishermen by Pierre Loti -

Mr. Midshipman Easy Makes a Bet by Captain Marryat -

The Flight of the Smugglers by John Masefield -

The Great White Whale by Herman Melville -

Rounding Cape Horn by Herman Melville -

The Mutiny of the Bounty by Guy Murchie, Jr. -

A Descent into the Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe -

Sir Richard Grenville and the Spanish Armada by Sir Walter Raleigh -

Attacked by Pirates by Charles Reade -

The Derelict Neptune by Morgan Robertson -

The Cruise of the Torch by Michael Scott -

Trafalgar by Robert Southey -

The Man with the Belt of Gold by Robert Louis Stevenson -

The Rescue of a Castaway by Jules Verne -

An Unknown Species of Whale by Jules Verne -

The Ballad of the Clampherdown by Rudyard Kipling -

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you like a book about old sea stories then this is for you then.