The Wreck Of The Grosvenor

349 pgs. Blue cloth with color pictorial paste down

Very Rare To Find The Dust Jacket and it is in good condition.

Wreck of the Grosvenor, The, by W. Clark Russell (1874). This story of the British merchant marine is notable amongst sea novels for its fidelity to the life, some phases of which it vividly portrays; and is the best by this author. The story is told by the second mate of the ship Grosvenor; and it relates the causes of dissatisfaction amongst the crew, and the harsh treatment of the men by a brutal and inhuman captain and chief mate. The troubles reach their climax in a mutiny, in which the captain and mate are killed by the crew. The mutineers finally desert the ship near the coast of America, and are lost in a gale. The ship also goes to the bottom; but the second mate and the few who were faithful to him are rescued when almost at the last gasp, by a passing steamer.

The gallant rescue from a sinking vessel in mid-ocean, of a beautiful and wealthy young lady with her father, brings into the story the necessary element of romance, and provides the second mate with a satisfactory partner for life.

The chief value of the book lies in the fact that it deals in a plain, straightforward manner, and without exaggeration, with some of the most glaring evils of the mercantile marine. Events like those recorded are familiar to every man who sailed the seas during the middle and even the latter part of this century, and they show to what an extent the power given by the law may be abused when placed in the hands of ignorant and brutal officers.

The Wreck of the Grosvenor' is said to have been a powerful factor in reforming the laws relating to the merchant seamen in Great Britain. Apart from its humanitarian motives, it is interesting for the excellent descriptions of wind and weather, and of situations with which the sailor has to deal.