Book Review from SW Soundings No.74 (Nov 2008)

Squarerigger Days - Autobiographies Of Sail

Edited By Charles W. Domville-Fife. Seaforth Publishing - An Imprint Of Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47, Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2as £25.00 ISBN: 978 1 84415 695 5
Website www.seaforthpublishing.com

In 1938 Charles Domville-Fife produced a book that has long been out of print, but which is highly regarded as a record of life at sea in the square-riggers, collated from various serving masters and men and covering a period from around 1860. As the editor said in the original introduction ‘The illustrations have been collected over a period of many years...and form a complete collection of photographic studies of the ships and life on board...’ That was true then and is true now, with by far the majority of the 91 black and white photographic illustrations coming from my own collection, most of which have not been published before. I may therefore be just a bit biased but for those few who may already own a copy of the original book, they will find much that is new to interest them.

There are few books that describe accurately life on board sailing ships in the last days of sail, from the 1860s to the First World War; the romantic image conjured up by many who wrote from a safe distance belies the harsh realities which were a sailorman's lot. Domville-Fife, in collecting together the personal stories of seamen while they were still alive, was able to present a truer picture of the tough last days of sail. Long voyages on board nineteenth-century sailing ships were marked by isolation, boredom, and miserable living conditions that taxed the endurance of men already hard pressed by the gruelling and dangerous nature of shipboard work.

While some were attracted to a life of adventure, most simply went to sea for a living, and a meagre one at that. They experienced neither the excitement of life on the crack clippers of the earlier decades, nor the safety of the steamships; they were caught in the limbo of a dying profession where poor pay, discontinuous employment, prolonged isolation from family and physical hardship was the norm. No wonder that murder, mutiny, starvation and shipwreck appear so persistently in the memoirs gathered here. Domville-Fife surely did future generations a great service by piecing together this reality. First published in 1938, these memoirs are now available again in this superbly presented new edition, with a new selection of stunning photographs and a fascinating introduction on life at sea in the dying world of sail.

The book is a hardback, 250mm x 185mm, running to 240 pages with an introduction by Robert D. Foulke and I feel that at its published price, good value and an excellent read.

Reviewed by D. B. Clement