Daily Reading (30 July 2015)

[nanila]

What have you been reading today? Everything counts, from a novel-length fic to the labels on your washing!

Comments

[chickenfeet]

Rereading William Spaven's "Memoirs of a seafaring man". Almost certainly the only book written by an ordinary sailor who served in the RN in the mid 18th century.

[nanila]

Sounds fascinating. Any good tidbits?

[chickenfeet]

It's very matter of fact. Spavens was a disabled seaman. He had lost a leg and wrote the memoir to supplement his pension. He assumes, almost certainly correctly, that his readers will have little or no idea about how the navy works so he explains all the routine stuff; who does what, how watches are kept, what the rations were and how they were cooked, how a battle was fought at sea. There are a few juicy court martial details and some oddities like which yard arm someone was hanged from (it depended on rank). And so on.

[ironed_orchid]

That sounds really great.

[chickenfeet]

It really is. It's the only memoir of it's time written by a foremast Jack.

[nanila]

I very much like the sound of this; thanks for elaborating. I shall endeavour to pick it up.