Add picture of Anacortes library maritime collection & NW Maritime collection & maritme books. Revise and shorten text.  Add statement that reviews are noted in the ACMC blog. 

Maritime Collection at the Anacortes Library...

This page on our web site is largely dedicated to the Maritime Collection at the Anacortes Library.  It is our intention to help you become more familiar with the wonderful books in this growing collection; and hopefully, our efforts will in some small way encourage you to visit the library; perhaps, you will check out a book, too.

Occasionally, we will also visit the maritime collection at the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend and the extensive maritime collection at the Wooden Boat School in Port Haddock, Washington.  We might also peer into the corners of our own local library to read a historical maritime novel by Alexander Kent or Dudley Pope.S.

Book Review: A Frigate of King George -- Life and Duty on a British Man-Of-War by Brian Vale.

From C. S. Forrester to Pat O'Brian, including the authors mentioned in the preceding paragraph, several ambitious people have written a ship load of historical fiction books on the adventures of the Royal Navy at the turn of the 19th Century.  Ahoy there, given the large amount of literature on this subject, it is not easy to know where to begin...

A Frigate of King George by Brain Vale is a good place to start.  For a quick read, I strongly recommend you begin by reading the preface -- it presents in a very concise manner the information you need to know to determine if you're on track.  Do I really want to spend the time reading a large body of historical material?  Do these authors really know what they are writing about?  What was life really like?  From the preface, you learn the research for this book largely comes from primary sources of the period --  drawing on official letters, logs, muster rolls, pay books, private letters and journels.

Vale also focuses primarily on a four year period between 1821 and 1824 when HMS Doris was taken out of the reserve and sent to the South American station.  This was a challenging time in the history of the Royal Navy.  At the end of the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navywas downsize from 713 to 134 British ships and from 140,000 to 23,000 British sailors.  Officers could not find ships.  Sailors were put on half-pay, etc., but still, the Navy had to provide protection of England, continue with shipping home the huge profits from British trade in silver and bullion, blockades to enforce, piracy on the high seas; essentially, the Royal Navy patrolled the South Altantic and the Pacific to assure the continued success of the British Empire.

Several historical authors write about this period.  It's an exciting period with plenty of human drama and international players.   Anyway, it's nice to have a book that separates fact from fiction.  It makes the reading much more interesting.

TBC...