Cruises, Mainly in the Bay of the Chesapeake

Philadelphia: The Franklin Press, 1909. First edition. Full cloth. Octavo. [x], 276, [3] pages. Near fine. Bound green cloth over boards with black-stamped yachting vignette on upper board, black-stamped titles on spine. A few light extremity rubs, shallow bumps, and a bit of fading to cloth toward heel of spine. Some mild toning to endpapers.. Black & White Photographs, 1 fold-out map. A Chesapeake Bay classic. The first book to draw significant attention to the Bay as ideally suited for pleasure boating. The Barrie brothers were members of the Corinthian Yacht Club in Philadelphia, and made their first cruise the Bay in 1897 by way of the C&D Canal, just at the beginning of the reign of the skipjack among Chesapeake Bay workboats. There were also numerous other workboats plying the Bay's waters then, but yachts, as George Barrie later recalled "in those days were almost as scarce as hen's teeth." (in Burgess, "This was Chesapeake Bay.") <br /> <br /> The book is written in a charmingly readable style and does not confine itself to scenes on the water but includes many interesting vignettes of Annapolis, Oxford, St. Michael's, activity around the boatyards, etc. Nicely illustrated with dozens of photographic plates depicting the native sailing craft as well as scenes in the sleepy shore towns and boatyards (note: the illustrations in the later Bryn Mawr editions are rather inferior to the original plates herein). Fold-out map of the Bay at rear. <br /> <br /> See HOWES #B-176; TOY #1023; PRATT-EASTERN SHORE #35; MORRIS & HOWLAND p. 11.