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Title: Women Sailors and Sailors' Women : An Untold Maritime History by David Cordingly ISBN: 0-375-75872-0 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 12 March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Marvelous!
Comment: While the sea and ships have been referred to as "feminine", little attention has been given to women AT sea - until now. Cordingly has organized his book as if it were a voyage - beginning with the women left behind (wives, sweethearts and prostitutes), the book then goes on to explore women as sailors - much to my surprise, not an uncommon occurance in the 19th century. Topics and stories include women captaining and navigating, women pirates, women who enlisted (and served) as warriors aboard ships, and of course, the women sailors returned to after a voyage are all discussed in riveting detail. The book is simply marvelous. Recommended reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: "Fascinating, little-known history"
Comment: I read this book in one sitting. By covering the role of women and the sea, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries, the author has brought to life stories that have been ignored for years. He covers everything from real women who disguised themselves as men to go to sea, to fictional and mythical creatures such as mermaids. All of the "true life" stories are wonderful, such as the young sea captain's wife who quelled a mutiny and sailed a clipper ship around Cape Horn when her husband was struck down by an illness.
David Cordingly manages to cover quite a vast subject without being overly verbose.
Rating: 5
Summary: Cherchez Les Femmes!
Comment: Women have been held to have particular power over the sea. Mermaids, of course, enchanted the sailors, as did the Sirens. And yet, there is an ancient superstition that women are not good for ships. The contradiction between woman as sea power and woman as sea jinx is hard to understand. It is discussed, but not resolved, in _Women Sailors & Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History_ (Random House) by David Cordingly, a wide-ranging look at women and the high seas during the great age of sail. Cordingly has been on the staff of the fine National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, and his wonderful book _Under the Black Flag_ was a revealing account of what pirates actually did. His current book is an entertaining miscellany of feminine and nautical lore, and while it is not a feminist tract, it is clear that women have played a larger role in seafaring than history generally gives them credit for.
Some of their roles are direct ones. Hannah Snell, for instance, served as a marine in the Royal Navy, sent to India on the sloop _Swallow_ in 1747. She was a bit of a hero in the siege of Pondicherry, shot eleven times in the legs. She revealed herself as a woman to her shipmates when she arrived home, and they would not have believed it had her sister not assured them of the truth. She was the only woman sailor to be granted a pension by The Royal Hospital at Chelsea. Once she was fully recovered from her wounds, and her identity was open, she became a celebrity, performing on the stage, having her portrait painted, and issuing a vivid account of her life story.
Most of the women at sea were, of course, women without a subterfuge of being men. Lower rates were allowed to have wives and families on board, especially the warrant officers known as "standing officers." These were the gunners, boatswains, and carpenters who, once assigned to a ship, were attached to that one ship more or less for good, sometimes from her launch to her breaking up. If the wives were aboard at wartime, they were expected to fulfill nursing duties or carry powder to the guns. They were never recorded in the official muster book, and so they only appear in letters or court-martial transcripts. Sometimes wives at sea played a heroic role. When her husband, the captain of the _Neptune's Car_, bound from New York to San Francisco in 1856, fell ill and collapsed, Mary Patten took effective command of the ship and brought it in safely. As a book about "sailors' women," this one tells about the wives the sailors left behind them, and also the prostitutes. It recounts the affairs of Nelson, John Paul Jones, and the ever-ready Captain Augustus Hervey, who had affairs with aristocratic ladies wherever his ship was in port, and if his reports are to be believed, they initiated action as often as he did, and gave him presents in token of his powers.
Cordingly has obviously had fun compiling these diverse tales and descriptions, which also include stories of ruthless female pirates, heroic lifesaving female lighthouse keepers, and Tahitian temptresses. He has illuminated an aspect of seafaring life that does not make it into most history books, and his book is an entertaining look at what we usually think of as an all-male world. Over and over, the men couldn't have managed without the women.
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Title: Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life among the Pirates by David Cordingly ISBN: 0156005492 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas by Sara Lorimer, Susan Synarski ISBN: 0811832376 Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Pirates Own Book : Authentic Narratives of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers by Marine Research Society ISBN: 0486276074 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 24 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages by Jo Stanley ISBN: 0044409702 Publisher: Pandora Pr Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
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Title: The History of Pirates by Angus Konstam ISBN: 1585745162 Publisher: The Lyons Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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