Ghosts on the Sea-line by A. A. Hurst ( 1957 )

grei innbundet Engelsk bok fra 1957

"This is the story of the tall ships that sailed out from Marienhamn to round the Cape and the Horn beneath a press of towering canvas; it is a tale of gales and doldrums, of skylarking and seamanship, of icebergs and burning sun, of fish and birds, of danger, distress and delight. 'If it is a lament I make no apology, but above all it is an attempt to preserve their memory in a proper perspective in the minds of those generations who may know them only by hearsay.' So writes Mr. Hurst of the great square-rigged sailing ships that continued to run the Trade routes of the world until the second World War. But the book is no lament : it is, to follow the metaphor, a song of joy and praise, of the sea and the great and proud sailing ships, with the land but a point to be reached at the end of a long voyage.

Mr. Hurst, we believe, intended to write a balanced logical work, portraying his ships a backcloth of successive oceans and ports. But there is nothing balanced and logical about Ghosts on the Sea-Line, for the winds that wafted his beloved ships round the world have a playful habit of blowing the author off his course, and have divided his earnest intentions into a thousand glittering fragments. That one learns a great deal in spite of this is because every ship, every voyage, every incident is to him a new pleasure, a new enthusiasm to be finely described and commented upon; and if, later, he recalls some feature left unremarked to us, we go back for another look, and there are new delights to be seen on the way. It is a wind-blown, salt-encrusted book of sheer beauty, with a glorious collection of the loveliest photographs of sailing ships ever reproduced. It is both pictorially and literally a treasure."

1. These Splendid Ships.

2. A City of Ships.

3. The Sounding Furrows.

4. Billow and Breeze.

5. Gipsies of the Horn.

6. The Wide Great Seas.

7. Days That Are Over.

With Glossary of Sea-terms and Nautical Expressions.