MONSARRAT, Nicholas. The Cruel Sea. London: Cassell. 1951. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking wraparound dust jacket. A very good example, the cloth clean and bright, one small stain to front board, the binding tight and just a trifle rolled. The contents clean and fine throughout without stamps, inscriptions, or foxing, faint offsetting to rear endpaper. The dust jacket unclipped (12/6 net) and complete, with several small nicks and tiny closed tears along most edges, gently bumped to joints, but a pleasing example overall of a volume usually found rather beaten.
The author’s magnum opus and, if you speak to any faculty member of a university history department, the greatest novel to depict the Second World War at sea, at least in this cataloguer’s experience, and later attested to by him. ‘The long and true story of one ocean, two ships, and about a hundred and fifty men’, described Monsarrat, who at the start of the war had only an interest in the sea and some knowledge of small sailing crafts. Throughout the war, he commanded corvettes and frigates as escorts for larger convoys across the Atlantic, and the matter-of-fact narrative depicts the incurable cruelty of the elements and the unknowable shadow of the German U-boat lurking beneath, capable of oblivion in a single hit. Uncommon in such sharp condition.
MONSARRAT, Nicholas. The Cruel Sea. London: Cassell. 1951. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking wraparound dust jacket. A very good example, the cloth clean and bright, one small stain to front board, the binding tight and just a trifle rolled. The contents clean and fine throughout without stamps, inscriptions, or foxing, faint offsetting to rear endpaper. The dust jacket unclipped (12/6 net) and complete, with several small nicks and tiny closed tears along most edges, gently bumped to joints, but a pleasing example overall of a volume usually found rather beaten.
The author’s magnum opus and, if you speak to any faculty member of a university history department, the greatest novel to depict the Second World War at sea, at least in this cataloguer’s experience, and later attested to by him. ‘The long and true story of one ocean, two ships, and about a hundred and fifty men’, described Monsarrat, who at the start of the war had only an interest in the sea and some knowledge of small sailing crafts. Throughout the war, he commanded corvettes and frigates as escorts for larger convoys across the Atlantic, and the matter-of-fact narrative depicts the incurable cruelty of the elements and the unknowable shadow of the German U-boat lurking beneath, capable of oblivion in a single hit. Uncommon in such sharp condition.
Image 1 of 5
Image 2 of 5
Image 3 of 5
Image 4 of 5
Image 5 of 5