SPRING TIDES

by Samuel Eliot Morison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 12, 1965

This slight volume of personal reminiscences about sailing and the sea must surely be among the smallest of retired Rear Admiral Morison's works (including as they do histories of Harvard, of naval operations in World War II, biographies and the recent Oxford History of the American People.) It reflects some seventy-eight years of experience as a yachtsman and a classically educated scholar, a rare combination these days. Six semi-related chapters include an essay on spring tides, a feet and inches history of the development of sailing yachts, descriptions of remembered yachts, accounts of cruises off the New England Coast and through the Aegean, and a good deal about the sea as seen by poets. In particular, in a long, scholarly section, Admiral Morison translates Greek and Latin descriptions of sea voyages. Informed and absorbed in his subject, his pensees may be of interest to other yachtsmen, but they are pretty scattered, personal and lacking in dramatic narrative to hold the average reader, despite their nostalgia.

Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1965

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION