Alan John Villiers (1903–1982)

Alan Villiers, Posted missing: the story of ships lost without trace in recent years (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1956). First of all is that a piece of the dustjacket is missing; someone has torn off the price. Added within is a pink bookmark advertising Bentalls Bookshop, ground floor, a large section of books, Kingston 1001. Its motto was ‘Make Bentalls bookshop your bookshop’. Sadly, Bentalls has disappeared within Fenwick. The range of missing vessels is from ‘the battleship Sao Paulo to little Breton fishing trawlers’ and all across the world.… (altro)

Captain James Cook was published in 1967 by an author born in 1903. Alan Villiers might be called one of the last great sailing ship seamen. It is hard to separate the book from Villiers because while a biography of James Cook, it is also an in-depth experience of full-rigged sailing ships through the eyes of a great sailor. Villiers crewed on some of the last full-rigged working sailing ships in the 1920s (they lasted that long because they were cheaper than coal ships for some uses). He then bought his own and trained sailors. He went all over the world. He is a poetic writers who wrote for National Geographic among others. He was famous by the 1950s and wrote a couple dozen books. This biography of Cook may be his masterpiece, though I suspect there are some more hidden treasures to be uncovered.

His writing reminds me of Joseph Mitchell ("Up in the Old Hotel"). Energetic vocabulary and description that leaves one bewildered and in awe. The sort of thing you might read for a lifetime with profit, this is a book to learn from. And it transports back to another age. Villiers is from another age, he was in the 20th century but solidly in the stream of 18th century maritime life. Perhaps the perfect person to write about Cook, whom he unabashedly admires, understanding the challenges he faced and overcame. The book is not perfect, the first sections are not so good and it's probably not the best to get all the facts on Cook, though it is essential to experiencing life on the sea. Nevertheless the core of the book, the three journeys, are well worth a rediscovery.… (altro)