Physical description

Hard cover book. The Bird of Dawning
Author: John Masefield
Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd
Date: 1933 to 1939
Further Information: Blue Cloth hardcover with lettering and patterning to spine in gilt. Front cover with title & authors name in gilt. The spine has a Library label with an inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with typed text PAT FIC MAS
Paste down front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Mechanics Institute and Free Library covered by a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service

Summary

The Bird of Dawning (1933) is a sea-adventure novel about the clipper ship Black gauntlet, which is racing home from China to London when she's struck at night by a passing steamer. Only about half the crew sixteen men escape into a lifeboat before she goes down. The 22-year-old second mate, Cruiser Trewsbury, takes command of the survivors and leads them on a roughly 700-mile open-boat voyage to the island of Fayal in the Azores, fighting sharks, dwindling water and food, a leaking boat, and the threat of mutiny along the way. Partway through, the survivors come across an abandoned, dismasted clipper still afloat and Cruiser gets the chance to jury-rig her and sail her home himself, turning survival into a race against time.