On the shore between Deal and Ramsgate, an elderly sailor claims to be cook, captain, mate, boatswain, midshipman—and the entire crew of his own captain’s gig. His shipwreck yarn explains how one man came to fill so many posts. In these late-nineteenth-century verses, W. S. Gilbert makes the respectable world wobble with absurd rhymes and perfectly serious manners. A captain pampers his crew so extravagantly that they ask him to arrange their marriages; a bishop’s zeal turns a busman’s life into a public spectacle. The ballads move from the sea to the street, exposing vanity, privilege and foolishness with a jaunty, wickedly comic touch. Who else will Gilbert send into trouble—and what unlikely solution will his verse devise? With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world. Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.
