Salt Water Poems and Ballads
With plates in color and black and white illustrations by Charles Pears
It is first of all as a poet of the sea that most people think of John Masefield. Consequently the publication of what may be called a de luxe edition of his best salt water ballads and sea poems is particularly gratifying. Here will be found one or two absolutely new pieces, new, that is, so far as their inclusion in a book is concerned. Among these are "The Ship and Her Makers," and "The New Bedford Whaler." Here also well-chosen selections from "Salt Water Ballads," from "Philip the King," and "The Story of a Round House." Mr. Masefield has been extremely fortunate in his illustrator. The twelve full-page illustrations in color and the twenty in black and white by Mr. Pears admirably reflect the spirit of the poet's lines.
The Locked Chest and The Sweeps of Ninety-Eight: Two One Act Plays
That Mr. Masefield is well grounded in the principles of dramatic art has been amply proved by the plays which he has published hitherto—"The Faithful," "Philip the King," "The Tragedy of Pompey" among others. In this book two further additions are made to a literature which he has already so greatly enriched.
Multitude and Solitude
Published a good many years ago, before the genius of John Masefield was fully appreciated, this novel is found to exhibit those qualities which, present in his later works, have served to mark him as one of the shrewdest of observers of human nature. "Multitude and Solitude" is a fascinating story of adventure, having to do with a courageous fight that is made against the far too often fatal sleeping sickness.
Captain Margaret
Cloth, $1.35
Captain Margaret, owner of the Broken Heart, mild dreamer and hardy adventurer in one, is a type of character one does not often meet in fiction, and his troubled pursuit of the vision he is always seeing, in Mr. Masefield's telling, is a story such as we seldom hear. It is a strange crew that goes scurrying out of Salcombe Pool on a darkening flood-tide in the Broken Heart, bound for the treasure-land of Darien. There is Captain Cammock, strong and fine, Stukeley the beast, Perrin the feeble, Olivia beautiful and blind, and Captain Margaret wisely good and uncomplaining—not a one of them but shines out from the story with unforgettable vividness. From England to Virginia and the Spanish Main with men at arms between decks goes the Broken Heart following her master's dream, and her thrilling voyage with its storms and battles is strongly and stirringly told. When John Masefield writes of the sea, the sea lives.