[.uk] The Book of Old Ships: From Egyptian Galleys to Clipper ... (ISBN 0486273326)

Delightful reading for enthousiast and history buff alike:
Essentially a reprint of a book published originally in 1924, the book manages to have both modern prose and a dated (nonpajorative in this case) perspective. Because the author is chronologically close to his subject, his focus on the meat of the matter is excellent. Complemented by excellent illustrations from Gordon Grant, Culver's prose flows forth, at once detailed, humourous, and filled with romance. An easy read that will probably be enjoyed by enthousiast, history buff, and devout non-fiction reader alike. We can only hope that this book does not go out of print for another 75 years.

Excellent illustrations:
If you're looking for a good interpretation of excellent illustrations, then this is your book! The illustrations are par none, but the writing lacks substance. Much of the descriptions are but interpretations, some based on fact, but many imagined. Readers looking for a very broad overview will enjoy this book. Those looking for detail about the ship or about the history of the time-period would do better with something else.

A Treasury of Sail:
The author presents a history of sailing ships through illustrations and descriptions that span 2-3 pages. He breaks the subject matter between long ships and round ships and presents the ships in chronological order from ancient galleys to clippers. The content of the description seems to be drawn from personal experience, where possible, and various research sources. The author does use a lot of naval terminology for rigging and ship structure that may leave the young or unversed in the dark. The real glory of the book is not, however, the entertaining prose, but the drawings of the ships. The art ranges from mostly black ink renderings of the ships to a few water colors (at least in my hardcover copy) that are simply beautiful pieces. If you are lucky enough to find a decent early copy (like my 1924 copy) jump on it. Or, if you are interested in seeing what various sailing ships looked like, any copy will do. P-)

fluff:
This book is great if you want to know what kind of rigging each ship had. You will not get how many crewman it took to sail each ship unless its a galley then you can figure it out by how many oars it had. On some you will get the tonnage of a particular ship but not always. You don't get any idea the cargo it was able to hold in tonnage or what type of cargo it mainly shipped. Nothing about what kind of weaponary ie cannon 6pounder,12pounder etc. I did like the pictures. I did learn about ships that I never knew existed. Thats why I said fluff in the title.

Well-illustrated with short descriptions of many ships:
The earlier review is accurate. This is a handy little guide if you want to look up some basic information about a type of ship of which you have heard, or if you just want to browse and pick up a little bit of nautical history. I am a D & D dungeon master, and I have used the book to show my players what various types of ships which they may encounter actually look like.