Clipper Ships and Their Makers. by Laing, Alexander - 1966.

New York:: G P Putnam's Sons, 1966.. 1st Edition.. Hardbound . BINDING/CONDITION: red cloth with black text; a Very Good book, with a Very Good dust jacket; publisher's price on the jacket flap is intact.. 8vo (about 8.75 inches tall) . Index. Description: Dust jacket art and interior illustrations by John Martinez; maps by Veronica Laing. From the jacket blurb: ''In the decade between 1847 and 1857, the American dream flourished. With a tiny navy, little wealth, and no conquered colonies, the Americans built the fastest merchant marine in the world. They learned to compete by scrapping all the old ideas about shipbuilding and began designing with a new kind of ingenuity. The results were the clipper ships, half poetry, all daring, and the most beautiful object on the seas. They were wrought by genius, especially one Donald McKay, and they were the practical answer for America's shipping. Here is a fond remembrance of the glorious clipper ship era. It tells why the clipper ship came to be and why it ceased to be.''