Great Stories of the Sea & Ships

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.