Another very well-written book by Collingwood. As he was a naval architect you can rely upon his descriptions of the deck and sails of a vessel of the mid nineteenth century, the period of which he writes.

Our hero, the 17-year-old midshipman of the Salamis, is suddenly given the job of going aboard and taking command of the Mercury, an emigrant ship that they find drifting in mid-ocean, all her officers having died in various accidents, and the illiterate bosun and the ship’s carpenter knowing full well that they had no idea how to navigate. He takes charge and all appears to be going well, when-- But I will not spoil a good story for you.

Full of events, and seamen’s humour, this books makes a good audiobook, and you will enjoy it.

Harry Collingwood (1851-1922). Pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, a civil engineer who specialised in seas and harbours.

A PDF of scans and an HTML version of this book are provided. We also provide a plain TEXT version and full instructions for using this to make your own audiobook. To find these click on the PDF, HTML or TXT links on the left.

These transcriptions of books by various nineteenth century authors of instructive books for teenagers, were made during the period 1997 to the present day by Athelstane e-Books. Most of the books are concerned with the sea, but in any case all will give a good idea of life in the nineteenth century. This of course includes attitudes prevalent at the time, but frowned upon nowadays.

We used a Hewlett-Packard scanner, a Plustek OpticBook 3600 scanner or a Nikkon Coolpix 5700 camera to scan the pages. We then made a pdf which we used to assist with editing the OCRed text.

To make a text version we used TextBridge Pro 98 or ABBYY Finereader 7 or 8 to produce a first draft of the text, and Athelstane software to find misreads and improve the text. We proof-read the chapters, and then made a CD with the book read aloud by either Fonix ISpeak or TextAloud MP3. The last step enables us to hear and correct most of the errors that may have been missed by the other steps, as well as entertaining us during the work of transcription.

The resulting text can be read at www.athelstane.co.uk

A very well-written book about the efforts of a young officer, Courtenay, to bring to book a wicked pirate, Morillo. It all seems very likely and believable, despite the usual ration of shipwrecks, captures, hurricanes, founderings, and so forth.

Makes a very good audiobook. NH.

Harry Collingwood (1851-1922). Pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, a civil engineer who specialised in seas and harbours.

A PDF of scans and an HTML version of this book are provided. We also provide a plain TEXT version and full instructions for using this to make your own audiobook. To find these click on the PDF, HTML or TXT links on the left.

These transcriptions of books by various nineteenth century authors of instructive books for teenagers, were made during the period 1997 to the present day by Athelstane e-Books. Most of the books are concerned with the sea, but in any case all will give a good idea of life in the nineteenth century. This of course includes attitudes prevalent at the time, but frowned upon nowadays.

We used a Hewlett-Packard scanner, a Plustek OpticBook 3600 scanner or a Nikkon Coolpix 5700 camera to scan the pages. We then made a pdf which we used to assist with editing the OCRed text.

To make a text version we used TextBridge Pro 98 or ABBYY Finereader 7 or 8 to produce a first draft of the text, and Athelstane software to find misreads and improve the text. We proof-read the chapters, and then made a CD with the book read aloud by either Fonix ISpeak or TextAloud MP3. The last step enables us to hear and correct most of the errors that may have been missed by the other steps, as well as entertaining us during the work of transcription.

The resulting text can be read at www.athelstane.co.uk

A very exciting story. It starts with a severe gale on the Essex coast of England. A rescue is effected, as a result of which one of the local fishermen generously adopts an orphan boy they find on the sinking ship.

Years later a number of young people set out on a return voyage by sea to Australia. On the return voyage there is a disastrous fire on board their ship, the Galatea, as a result of which they and the crew take to the boats.

They are rescued by a vessel that turns out to be a pirate ship, the captain of which takes them to his island, where he has a number of ships of various kinds that he has captured. Discovering that one of his prisoners has designed and built his own fast-sailing yacht, the pirate commands the people to build him a new fast ship, which they set about doing, and succeed in doing so.

Just as the ship is completed two of the party find, in a well-written episode, that there is a major reef of gold on the island. However they press on with plans to escape, which involves making off with the new fast ship they have just completed.

Just as they are departing there is an earthquake, leading to a volcanic eruption in the island. This results in the death of their pursuers.

Putting two and two together it is realised that one of the people in this story, who had originally been the boy adopted at the very start of the book, is the lost child of the uncle of another of the passengers. The uncle has been miserable ever since the loss of his wife and child, though he did not know from what ship, and where, they had been lost. There is a perfectly good reason for this. Needless to say, it all ends happily, with various marriages, and with the intention of getting back to the Pirate Island, to see if it has survived the eruption, and if so, if the gold can be mined.

It makes a very good audiobook, that is very gripping, especially at the point where the original discovery of the gold is made.

Harry Collingwood (1851-1922). Pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, a civil engineer who specialised in seas and harbours.

A PDF of scans and an HTML version of this book are provided. We also provide a plain TEXT version and full instructions for using this to make your own audiobook. To find these click on the PDF, HTML or TXT links on the left.

These transcriptions of books by various nineteenth century authors of instructive books for teenagers, were made during the period 1997 to the present day by Athelstane e-Books. Most of the books are concerned with the sea, but in any case all will give a good idea of life in the nineteenth century. This of course includes attitudes prevalent at the time, but frowned upon nowadays.

We used a Hewlett-Packard scanner, a Plustek OpticBook 3600 scanner or a Nikkon Coolpix 5700 camera to scan the pages. We then made a pdf which we used to assist with editing the OCRed text.

To make a text version we used TextBridge Pro 98 or ABBYY Finereader 7 or 8 to produce a first draft of the text, and Athelstane software to find misreads and improve the text. We proof-read the chapters, and then made a CD with the book read aloud by either Fonix ISpeak or TextAloud MP3. The last step enables us to hear and correct most of the errors that may have been missed by the other steps, as well as entertaining us during the work of transcription.

The resulting text can be read at www.athelstane.co.uk

It was a bit puzzling to to work out who or what the Rover was, and what the secret was. The word Rover is not mentioned once in the body-text of the book, and the word secret only three or four times. However, eventually I sussed it out. The Rover is a pirate who figures enough in the book for one to be aware he is there. He is mortally wounded, and in the last chapter he tells his secret before he dies, thus providing an explanation for several other puzzling things that we have been told, or that happened, in the book.

On the other hand I was not too happy with the overall style of the book, which is too florid and long-winded. Practically every sentence could be greatly shortened without loss, and it is sometimes an amusing exercise to rest from reading, and then try to re-phrase the current paragraph.

Apart from those things, the book is written in a style much like that of Kingston. This is typical of Collingwood, but one sometimes thinks he is a bit plagiaristic. That doesn’t stop it from being quite an enjoyable book.

Harry Collingwood (1851-1922). Pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, a civil engineer who specialised in seas and harbours.

A PDF of scans and an HTML version of this book are provided. We also provide a plain TEXT version and full instructions for using this to make your own audiobook. To find these click on the PDF, HTML or TXT links on the left.

These transcriptions of books by various nineteenth century authors of instructive books for teenagers, were made during the period 1997 to the present day by Athelstane e-Books. Most of the books are concerned with the sea, but in any case all will give a good idea of life in the nineteenth century. This of course includes attitudes prevalent at the time, but frowned upon nowadays.

We used a Hewlett-Packard scanner, a Plustek OpticBook 3600 scanner or a Nikkon Coolpix 5700 camera to scan the pages. We then made a pdf which we used to assist with editing the OCRed text.

To make a text version we used TextBridge Pro 98 or ABBYY Finereader 7 or 8 to produce a first draft of the text, and Athelstane software to find misreads and improve the text. We proof-read the chapters, and then made a CD with the book read aloud by either Fonix ISpeak or TextAloud MP3. The last step enables us to hear and correct most of the errors that may have been missed by the other steps, as well as entertaining us during the work of transcription.

The resulting text can be read at www.athelstane.co.uk

The first edition of this book is dated 1895. The edition used is dated about 1910. It was an edition in which two sixpenny prints of George Manville Fenn books in small type, and with two columns per large page, were bundled with it, all in the same binding. The quality of the binding is superb, but the quality of the printing and the paper used do not quite match it. The publisher was Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The number of pages is 126.

General information

This is a very well-written book, especially from the nautical point of view. It is written as by a midshipman in a British warship patrolling the west coast of Africa, especially the Congo area, to try to prevent the slave traders, especially the Portuguese, from succeeding in their efforts to get the poor captured Africans over the Atlantic to Cuba in the most miserable conditions.

But it doesn’t work out as simply as that! For the hero, Harry Dugdale, is captured in an action, and would have been killed but for the interest taken in him by the slaver-captain’s son. From this there sprang a deal with the slaver that Harry would assist with navigation and watch-keeping, but must go below decks when there is an action in progress.

We won’t tell you much more than that but cannot refrain from commenting that the book is at least as good as the best by Kingston, though in this book the action is almost entirely at sea, or at least on board a sea-going vessel.

Harry Collingwood (1851-1922). Pseudonym of William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, a civil engineer who specialised in seas and harbours.

A PDF of scans and an HTML version of this book are provided. We also provide a plain TEXT version and full instructions for using this to make your own audiobook. To find these click on the PDF, HTML or TXT links on the left.

These transcriptions of books by various nineteenth century authors of instructive books for teenagers, were made during the period 1997 to the present day by Athelstane e-Books. Most of the books are concerned with the sea, but in any case all will give a good idea of life in the nineteenth century. This of course includes attitudes prevalent at the time, but frowned upon nowadays.

We used a Hewlett-Packard scanner, a Plustek OpticBook 3600 scanner or a Nikkon Coolpix 5700 camera to scan the pages. We then made a pdf which we used to assist with editing the OCRed text.

To make a text version we used TextBridge Pro 98 or ABBYY Finereader 7 or 8 to produce a first draft of the text, and Athelstane software to find misreads and improve the text. We proof-read the chapters, and then made a CD with the book read aloud by either Fonix ISpeak or TextAloud MP3. The last step enables us to hear and correct most of the errors that may have been missed by the other steps, as well as entertaining us during the work of transcription.

The resulting text can be read at www.athelstane.co.uk