The Billy Ruffian: The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon, The Biography of a Ship of the Line, 1782 - 1836 by David Cordingly
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The Billy Ruffian: The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon, The Biography of a Ship of the Line, 1782 - 1836 by David Cordingly
The story of the seventy-four-gun warship Bellerophon will be familiar to anyone who's read Patrick O'Brian or C.S. Forester. The Billy Ruffian runs from its subject's birth in a small shipyard in 1782, to her death in a breaker's yard more than fifty years later, after serving as a prison hulk. In the intervening years the Billy Ruffian played a conspicuous part in three of the most famous of all sea battles: the battle of the Glorious First of June (1794), the opening action against revolutionary France; the battle of the Nile (1798), which halted Napoleon's eastern expansion from Cairo; and the battle of Trafalgar (1805), which established British naval supremacy for a hundred years. But her crowning glory came six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, when Napoleon, trapped in Rochefort, surrendered to the captain of the ship that had dogged his steps for more than twenty years.
David Cordingly has used primary source materials such as diaries, ship's logs, and personal letters (many of which are reproduced here) to create a fascinating and eminently readable account of life both on ship and off during this most romantic of eras.
THIS IS A USED BOOK IN LIKE NEW CONDITION. THE DUST WRAPPER IS ALSO IN LIKE NEW CONDITION
Bloomsbury, Hardcover, 2003
The story of the seventy-four-gun warship Bellerophon will be familiar to anyone who's read Patrick O'Brian or C.S. Forester. The Billy Ruffian runs from its subject's birth in a small shipyard in 1782, to her death in a breaker's yard more than fifty years later, after serving as a prison hulk. In the intervening years the Billy Ruffian played a conspicuous part in three of the most famous of all sea battles: the battle of the Glorious First of June (1794), the opening action against revolutionary France; the battle of the Nile (1798), which halted Napoleon's eastern expansion from Cairo; and the battle of Trafalgar (1805), which established British naval supremacy for a hundred years. But her crowning glory came six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, when Napoleon, trapped in Rochefort, surrendered to the captain of the ship that had dogged his steps for more than twenty years.
David Cordingly has used primary source materials such as diaries, ship's logs, and personal letters (many of which are reproduced here) to create a fascinating and eminently readable account of life both on ship and off during this most romantic of eras.
THIS IS A USED BOOK IN LIKE NEW CONDITION. THE DUST WRAPPER IS ALSO IN LIKE NEW CONDITION
Bloomsbury, Hardcover, 2003
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