Masterman Ready

At the bottom of one of our bookshelves are a few old books, some bound in leather, some, like this one, with cloth covers. This is....

....an illustrated edition of Captain Marryat's 'Masterman Ready', a book about which one hears nothing these days. Sadly the publisher, Thomas Nelson, didn't see fit to include a publication date, though this must have been very early in the 20th century.

There was a habit in those days of giving, at the start of each chapter, a brief summary of its contents. I'm not at all sure what purpose this served except, perhaps, if one was searching for a particular reference.

The book was given to my mother at Christmas, 1923, by Christian. My mother's aunt was a Christian but this is more likely to have been Helen's elder sister. In 1923 they were both at Sale County High School and my mother was ten.

To the left one can see how the cover was stitched on. I wonder if my mother did this.