first attempt at a review
Book title Billy Ruffian
Author David Cordingly
Hardback 856 pages
Language: English
Synopsis The Bellerophone and the downfall of Napoleon. The biography of the ship of he line 1782 - 1835. This is the story of the Bellerophone a 74 gun ship of the line The book details the birth of the ship at a small shipyard on the river midway on through famous battles at the glorious 1st of June (1794), battle of the Nile (1784) and the most famous battle of Trafalgar (1805). But eclipsing all of these the book also covers the surrender of Napoleon to the ships captain and his subsequent exile. After this the ship has an ignominious end as a prison ship and the eventually is broken up in 1835.
I enjoyed this book however I will clarify my own interest in it by saying that I can be a bit of a history buff on occasions. I personally started to read this book in order to do research rather than for actually reading pleasure however I kept reading it for enjoyment reasons. The concept of the book works really well the idea of a biography of a ship is good because the Bellerophone seemed to be in the midst of many of the events that shaped the history of this country. The book gives a good insight not only into the battles but also the general working of a sailing ship and for this reason anyone who has a story in mind that involves a great deal of travelling in this type of ship I would recommend this book. The only disadvantage for this book for the reason of reach is that it is very much a non fiction book in the way that on occasions it seems to be crying out for narrative and a little poetic licence however it concentrates on dates, times and factual information. Saying that though it is not supposed to do anything but set the scene and tell you what happened. It is enjoyable and very informative. It has a good insight into the events that were happening when not only Briton was at war with France, Spain and America but also has good information on the war from the perspective of Napoleon and his strategies and general life.
