by Kate Lance

This first full biography of Alan Villiers paints a fascinating, detailed portrait of the life and times of this brilliant writer, photographer and adventurer.

Alan Villiers was born in Melbourne in 1903 and from boyhood had an intense, overriding passion for sail and for writing about his experiences at sea. After a lucky break, he produced his first book based on a whaling expedition to the Antarctic, soon followed by his account of the voyage of the Herzogin Cecilie from Australia to Great Britain. Over the next decades, he sailed all over the world in square-rigged ships, including as a commander of his own square-rigger, the Joseph Conrad, and in over forty books captured the passing of a romantic and dangerous world that had drawn people to the sea for centuries.

  Winner of the Mountbatten Maritime Award

A National Maritime Museum Publication.

• Hardback
• 320 pages with 60 black and white photos
• ISBN: 9780948065958