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Books : The Billy Ruffian : The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon

by: David Cordingly

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List Price: $25.95
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Sales Rank: 14,131
Release Date: October, 2003
Media: Hardcover
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: 5.00 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Splendidly Historical Writing for all Fans of Sail
By Bill Marsano. Well here we are, me hearties, smack in the middle of the Age of Fighting Sail, when the Royal Navy--Nelson's Navy--made clear to the world that Britannia ruled the waves. Our foe be the awful French led by the beastly Napoleon, who makes no secret of his imperial ambitions. Britain, that nation of shopkeepers, aims to stop him. Are we having fun yet, or what?

Shakespeare put it about that "ships are but boards," yet few sailors would agree. Most come to believe that ships--some, at least--are living things, possessed of souls. They love them as if they are living beings. Such a ship is the subject of this "biography," which reads like a novel but is factual from keel to truck. The ship is HMS Bellerophon--Billy Ruffian to her crew. A most fortunate ship, designed ... Read More

Rating:

- A biography of a ship and the men who served on her
HMS Bellerophon - commonly known as the "Billy Ruffian" by Royal Navy sailors who inevitably turned any classical reference into something more humble and easier on the tongue - was in most respects a typical 74-gun ship-of-the-line during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. And she is the focus of a new "biography" written by David Cordingly: "The Billy Riffian: The Bellerophon and the Downfall of Napoleon, The Biography of a Ship of the Line, 1782-1836". Codringly is no stranger to nautical studies, with both his "Under the Black Flag" (about pirates) and "Women Sailors and Sailors' Women" having been well received. Where the Bellerophon perhaps departed from the typical ship-of-the-line was her knack at being involved in important events. Not only was she at the Glorious First of ... Read More

Rating:

- Wherever there is water..we are sure to find you in our way.
Sorry I couldn't fit the whole quote in the title to this review. The above is an excerpt of something said to Captain Maitland of the "Bellerophon" in the summer of 1815 when Napoleon was being held on board, waiting to learn what his fate would be. (He hoped to be allowed to buy and live in a home in the English countryside. Alas, it was not to be.) Here is the full quote: "If it had not been for you English, I should have been Emperor of the East; but wherever there is water to float a ship, we are sure to find you in our way." As David Cordingly demonstrates in this wonderful book, the "Bellerophon," during the period 1794-1815, was an integral part of "find(ing) you in our way." Before ending her career as a "floating prison" she was in the thick of the action at the Battle of the Glorious ... Read More

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