Sea Warfare

Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1917. Presumed First U. S. Edition thus. Hardcover. [6], 222, [2] pages. Cover stained and soiled at bottom. Includes three stories by Rudyard Kipling: The Fringes of the Fleet; Tale of "The Trade"; and Destroyers at Jutland. Inside the front cover is the bookplate of John Lyman! This is believed to be the John Lyman whose achievement in maritime history is particularly notable because, like most of his colleagues, Lyman worked regular jobs in the Navy and later in academia. He also obtained his advanced degrees in Oceanography (M.S., 1951; Ph.D., 1958) from Scripps while pursuing his avocation. Even working full-time and producing Log Chips, he was able to publish a dozen or more articles a year, a pace that increased after his retirement. Lyman also continued to publish work in oceanographic and linguistic journals and to consult and serve on the boards of various maritime societies and preservation projects. He continued to pursue his interests and build collections in maritime history and technology, linguistics, sea chanteys, the history and lore of flags, and the genealogy of the Lyman family. While Dr. Lyman usually described these activities as merely a way of filling his free time, Karl Kortum summarized the value of his work when he observed, "We have been benefiting from a scientist's mind -- educated, reaching, retentive, analytical -- and we've been lucky that sailing ship history is the 'sideline' it chose." He was a founding trustee and later advisor to the National Maritime Society, and an organizer and council member of the North American Society for Oceanic History, which annually offers the John R. Lyman Book Award in his memory. Sea warfare is a collection of three series of articles with the poems which accompanied them in their serial publication, together with one additional poem. The articles were written for the Minister of Information and Publication in British and American newspapers during 1915 and 1916....The two editions [i.e. British and American] differ slightly from one another in text; both differ in many respects from the texts as published in the newspapers." Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Henry James said "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey. Kipling is recognized as an incomparable interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with. At the beginning of the First World War, like many other writers, Kipling wrote pamphlets and poems enthusiastically supporting the UK war aims of restoring Belgium, after it had been occupied by Germany, together with generalized statements that Britain was standing up for the cause of good. In September 1914, Kipling was asked by the government to write propaganda, an offer that he accepted. Kipling's pamphlets and stories were popular with the British people during the war, his major themes being to glorify the British military as the place for heroic men to be, while citing German atrocities against Belgian civilians and the stories of women brutalized by a horrific war unleashed by Germany, yet surviving and triumphing in spite of their suffering. During the war, he wrote a booklet The Fringes of the Fleet containing essays and poems on various nautical subjects of the war. Some of these were set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar. Condition: Fair.

Keywords: First World War, Battle of Jutland, Royal Navy, Naval Operation, Sea Warfare, Battle Fleet, Destroyers, John Lyman, Propaganda

[Book #80791]

Price: $45.00

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