Square Rigger Days: Autobiographies of Sail

Describes the last, tough days of cemmercial sail, from the 1860s to WWI. Far from the romantic image conjured up by other books on the subject, Domville-Fife provides a true look at the harsh realities of the sailor’s life on board 19th century merchant ships. Caught in the limbo of a dying profession, the men experienced neither the excitement of life on the crack clippers of earlier decades nor the safety of steamships. Instead, murder, mutiney, starvaton, and shipwreck were common in their lives, and hte retelling of their experiences makes for compelling reading. First published in 1938.