By Basil Lubbock
Published by: Brown, Son & Ferguson (Reprinted 1969)
These two hefty volumes were a continuation of Lubbock, himself a square-rig sailor, and his history of the China Clippers, a book with the eponymous title, which covered these great ships before the Suez Canal was cut.
After the canal was open these two volumes followed with the ambitious task of writing about every sailing ship launched since the short-cut behind the Cape of Good Hope rang the death knell for the days of sail.
Apart from the history of the ships, character sketches of personnel, Cape Horn, and freights carried, Lubbock also covered the barques of the African trade; fruit schooners, and fish carriers as well.
Volume Two concentrates on the last 40 years of sail up to 1928, with sections on the ‘Lime-juicers’; the art of sail handling and ports of the world.
Both are considered the Old and New Testaments of the square rig.
