Spindrift : salt from the ocean of English prose / monograph
Sir Geoffrey Callender (1875-1946) was a British naval historian who was the first director of the National Maritime Museum. In this collection, which was first published in 1915, Callender presents a series of pieces written by various 'masters of English prose' relating to maritime themes. The pieces are presented, as far as knowledge permits, in the order of their composition or publication, beginning with John Wycliffe's 'The story of Jonah' and finishing with James Anthony Froude's 'Drake'. Detailed notes are contained throughout the text, providing linguistic clarification and contextual information where necessary. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in English prose writing and writing about the sea
xv, 417 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
9781107651586, 1107651581
908272221
Preface: John Wycliffe: The story of Jonah; Geoffrey Chaucer: The astrolabe; Sir Thomas Malory: King Arthur's dream; The passing of Arthur; Cardinal Wolsey: A letter to the Bishop of Worcester; The Book of Common Prayer: God's mercy to mariners; A prayer; Sir Thomas More and Ralph Robinson: Hythloday home from Utopia; John Lyly: Boxing the compass; Richard Hakluyt: Preface to the Principal Navigations; The corposant; Martin Frobisher's second voyage; Valiant enterprise of the tall ship Primrose; A water famine; 'Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona'; The taking of the Madre de Dios; Sir Walter Raleigh: The last fight of the Revenge; Francis Bacon: The influence of sea power; A paradox; Lord Herbert of Cherbury: The channel passage in 1609; William Shakespeare: The Tempest; Alongshore; Authorized Version of the Bible: Man's insignificance; The shipwreck of St Paul; Samuel Purchas: The services of the sea; Sir Thomas Overbury: Character of the sailor; Sir William Monson: The choice of captains; Captain John Smith: The pathway to experience; Thomas Fuller: The good sea captain; Samuel Pepys: The restoration of Charles II; John Evelyn: The galleys!; The death of Lord Sandwich; Samuel Pepys; Lord Clarendon: Scenes from the great civil war; William Wycherley: The man of action; William Congreve: An ill-sorted couple; Charles Shadwell: Brutal and finical; Joseph Addison: Of monuments and in particular of Sir Clowdisley Shovel's; The mirror of the infinite; Sir Richard Steele: Inkle and Yarico; Alexander Selkirk; Daniel Defoe: Crusoe carries his salvage ashore on a raft; Crusoe builds a boat; Crusoe visits a wreck; Fighting under the Jolly Roger; Jonathon Swift: Gulliver captures the Blefuscudian navy; A great gale described; Gulliver's boat at Brobdingnag; Tobias Smollett: Roderick Random is seized by the press-gang; The surgeon's mates of the Thunder, off duty and on; Brutality of Captain Oakum; The cockpit in time of battle; A yarn from Commodore Trunnion; Commodore Trunnion's wedding-day; The death of Commodore Trunnion; Henry Fielding: Leaves from the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon; James Macpherson: A song of Ossian; Laurence Sterne: Mal de mer; Oliver Goldsmith: Officers of 'The Fleet'; Edmund Burke: New England fishers; Horace Walpole: The crisis; Edward Gibbon: The navy of Byzantium; Greek or maritime fire; Over land; Robert Southey: The death of Nelson; Sir Walter Scott: Dirk Hatteraick, - smuggler; Cast up by the sea; The making of a pirate; Charles Lamb: The old Margate Hoy; Washington Irving: The discovery of America; Captain Marryat: A flogging round the fleet; Captain Capperbar; The hardships of impressment; Weathering the Cape; and a chat with the bo's'n; Passing for Lieutenant; Equality, and the rights of man; Michael Scott: A sea-piece. Blue and gold; A nocturne. Silver and black; Wounded; Commodore Sir Oliver Oakplank and Lieutenant David Sprawl; Thomas Carlyle: Naval occasions; The Vengeur at death grips; Sound and smoke at Santa Cruz; Edgar Allan Poe: A sail! A sail!; Leigh Hunt: Seamen on shore; Gangway!; Richard Henry Dana: 'Man overboard!'; A savage and merciless tyrant; The sailorman and his memory; George Borrow: In the bay of Biscay; Alexander William Kinglake: Constantinople; William H. Prescott: Pioneers in the Pacific; Lord Macaulay: State of the navy under Charles II; Charles Dickens: The Pegottys at home; Storm and shipwreck; John Ruskin: A pair of seascapes; Nathaniel Hawthorne: How Jason built the Argo and set sail for Colchis; Walter Savage Landor: An imaginary conversation; John Lothrop Motley: How they brought the sea to Leyden; Charles Kingsley: Last of the Madre Dolorosa; 'Vengeance is mine' saith the Lord; Thomas de Quincey: The Spanish military nun; Ralph Waldo Emerson: The voyage to England; William Makepeace Thackeray: The fighting Téméraire; James Russell Lowell: Mr X, Chief Mate; James Anth
Originally published 1915, first paperback edition 2013