Product Description

A photo-historical record of the last days of the wind-borne merchant ships. Taken during the 1920s and 1930s by Alan Villiers, a professional seaman and a narrator and geographer for the National Geographic Society, the photographs provide an insight into a real way of life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #559568 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-07
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 28 pages

Customer Reviews

at last credit to Alan Villiers as a photographer
Many of the books by Alan Villiers I bought and read before. Some of them in (mostly poor) dutch translations, some of them in the original print. In these books I allready noticed the quality of the photos published, alltough often I did not realise that they were Villiers work. In pre-war books the cheap printing quality did no credit to them. Until now they were never printed in the size they deserve. Don't miss them! (and keep collecting Alans other books).

Coffee table book with beautiful photographs
Alan Villiers was big in the 30's and, as seaman turned author/photographer recounted his escapades on the 'Last of the Great Windships' - by chance he lived at the time when steam was all set to put sail permanently out of business. This book, however, is not by Villiers but is simply a collection of his photographs accompanied by exerts from his best selling books from that time. The photographs are extremely good, especially as apparently he had no formal training and likewise his writing style genuinely paints a very vivid and beautiful image in ones mind as to what life on board must have been like. However, I was left wanting to read the original texts - not just the paragraph or two that accompanied each of the photos in this coffee table book.

Title confusion - Make sure you get the book you want!
"Last of the Wind Ships"
and
"THE Last of the Wind Ships"
- not the same book!

"Last of the Wind Ships" was published in 1934, (presumably now out-of-print) and is Alan's fascinating tale of the voyage of the Parma from Australia to Plymouth

"The Last of the Wind Ships" was published in 2000 and is a compilation of all of Alan's work.

Both are extemely good coffee table books - the photographs are breathtaking - but the earlier publication weaves a story, whereas the latter, although containing some background in the early pages, is really just a collection of photographs, with some extracts from the texts of his other books.

Personally I prefer the earlier publication - especially as my favourite photographs from the original do not appear in the complilation.