Salt Water: or, the Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy, the Midshipman

New York: C.S. Francis & Co, 1858. Hardcover. Fair. H. Anelay. Format is approximately 4.5 inches by 7 inches. 388 pages with 8 pages of illustrated advertisements. Illustrations. Cover worn and soiled. Spine frayed and chipped at top and bottom. Somewhat shaken. Some page discoloration. William Henry Giles Kingston (28 February 1814 - 5 August 1880), often credited as W. H. G. Kingston, was an English writer of boys' adventure novels. His newspaper articles on Portugal were translated into Portuguese, and assisted the conclusion of the commercial treaty with Portugal in 1842, when he received from Donna Maria da Gloria an order of Portuguese knighthood and a pension. He worked actively for the improvement of the condition of seamen. From 1850, his chief occupation was writing books, or editing annuals and weekly periodicals. His stories number more than a hundred. His writings occupy 9 and a half pages of the British Museum Catalogue. One interesting feature of this book is that it must have been one of the earliest to be written by Kingston. Scarce copy from this publisher. It does not appear that there was another edition for sixty years, by which time the author had been dead for 35 years. It is also a very good book of his genre, with lots of battle, murder, and sudden death. It deals with the adventures of a young boy who joins the Royal Navy as a midshipman in the care of his uncle. Most of the action takes place in the Mediterranean, even so far as the Ionian sea, where he visits Zante (now called Zakynthos), Cephalonia, and even Corfu. Of course practically everybody appearing in the book is slain, except the young hero, who survives all. Henry Anelay was a British 19th Century artist who was born in 1817.