Robert Charles Parsons

This book is rather like the weather around Newfoundland: Perhaps a little more breezy than you'd like.

If there is one genre of books that is typical of Newfoundland -- land of small schooners, of outports, of men going out to hunt cod and women waiting at home for their return -- it is surely that of tales of boats lost, of miraculous rescues, of great storms and heartbreaking tragedies. This is an entirely typical example of the genre.

It has at least one major virtue that most of these things don't have: an actual index of ships. Newfoundland pop historians seem to have an allergy to letting you find anything in their books, but this has a reference guide, from the A. B. Barteau to the Winnie and Vivian. It's a great help to someone trying to actually use the book to research other projects. And, as best I can tell, it seems to be mostly an accurate book.

But so very, very brief! Nominally it's 263 pages counting the Index. But the type is very large -- it appears to be 12 point type on 14 point leading, and with space between paragraphs! Compared to a typical book (say 10.5 point type, 12.5 point leading, no space between paragraphs), that means about 25% less actual text per page. And only about half a dozen ships get as much as four pages of coverage. It's not really a true history of the particular ships and events; it's more like a Sunday supplement. And, with no footnotes and no proper bibliography, there is no way to find out more.

If all you want is a lot of quick, often heart-rending stories, this may be the book for you. If you want an introduction to something bigger and greater, this probably won't help much.… (más)