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Taylor, E. G. R. (editor) : A Regiment for the Sea, and other writings on navigation by William Bourne of Gravesend, a gunner

(Cambridge, The Hakluyt Society, 1963)

Series II, Volume CXXI. Issued for 1961. 8vo; original blue cloth gilt; pp. xxxvi + 464, incl. index; tables; diagrams; monochrome plates, some folding. Spine gilt dull; fore-edge of upper board very slightly damp-stained; endpapers foxed; sporadic light foxing; pages unopened. Good to very good condition. "William Bourne, of Gravesend, by trade a gunner, was a successful writer of a new type of textbook. Neither a scholar nor of gentle birth, both of which were regarded as the prerequisites of authorship in the sixteenth century, when scientific books were expected to appear only in universities and to be read only by those fluent in Latin, Bourne nevertheless produced a whole series of technical manuals, written in English for the artisans and craftsmen of his own class. A Regiment for the Sea, which forms the core of the volume, is perhaps the earliest technical manual written by an Englishman. It is not simply his rules for navigation, for Bourne wrote much as he spoke, so that out of this instruction book for sailors a clear picture of the man himself emerges: serious, reliable, patriotic and with this inborn impulse to pass on his knowledge to others. The first edition of 1574 is printed here in full, with the additional material which was added to the 1580 edition. Professor Taylor has also included to Almanackes. She has written an introductory section to each text, and in her General Introduction she fills in the details of Bourne's life and discusses his various writings. There is a full Bibliography."

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