The Lore of Ships "by" Tre Tryckare - Book Review

[robert952]

Reading through various threads on MSW, I see where people refer to the book The Lore of Ships.  I thought it might be appropriate to provide information about the book.  I use the book a bit and spend a lot of time just looking at the pages in hopes of learning something.  (Sometimes I do learn or understand better.) The book does provide a lot of information that’s general in nature but gets specific within the images on the pages. 

 

I know that sounds contradictory.  However, the book covers a wide range of subjects (therefore, a general reference) using illustrations with a lot of details. 

 

This review covers the 1972 edition published by Crescent Books (New York).  The original publication date was 1963 by Tre Tryckare (Stockholm Sweden), a publishing company.  Minor issue, but there is no author/person I can find by that name.  The book is a collaboration of many people using multiple sources. 

 

(As a side bar:  The book was edited by Sam Svensson and republished in 1998 by Barnes and Noble.  Svensson wrote the book’s Introduction section and the commentary to the Spars and Rigging section.)

 

All editions are hard cover.  The 1972 edition is 11 X 12 inches (and I imagine the others the same size) with 279 pages.  The book contains over 1500 illustrations and (by my estimate) over 2500 index entries. 

 

You can find copies on the used book sites such as Thrift Books and Good Reads as well as Amazon. Prices vary based on store and condition of the book.  The price range I found runs from $8 to $40 US. 

 

The 11 sections of the book cover: Introduction; Hull; Spars and Riggings; The Sail; Propulsion; Fishing; Yachting; Gunnery; Navigation; Ship-Handling and Index.  Each section starts with an introduction on the subject.  Then, as listed on the contents page, more detailed illustrations follow within each section.

 

Each section has drawings and illustrations, no photos.  The crisp, clean, drawings have well identified callouts and labels.  Their presentation gives an authoritative look and feel to the individual illustrations.  While you will find some details in the identifying text, the book does not have a tremendous amount of written information.  Additionally, while the list of sources contains a lot of named material, the book does not tie specific information to the details in the drawings.  For example: National Geographic shows as a reference, but no specific edition or articles are cited.  I’d suggest additional cross reference material be used depending on your research purpose.

 

If the item you research has some connection to ships and things nautical, you will likely find it here.  Wooden sailing ships to steel hulled ships; sails to steam engines; compass roses to sextants; cannon balls to rockets; they are all here. Even objects like signal flags, clothing, navigation and food objects show up in the book. 

 

This book does not provide details on any specific ship or boat.  In a few instances, the name or type of a ship and maybe an era are identified.  However, this book allows you look at minute details of general use and interest.  You can glean a lot of information from studying the illustrations.

 

I use this book as my ‘go to’ to look for an object.  After finding the object or item, you can easily see similar, related items. For example, you look up ‘Tackles and blocks.’  On the same page (p. 123) you can see the relative increase in power from a single whip to a three by four tackle.  So, again, general information on various blocks but, in this case, no specifics on when or where a block might be used.

 

That vast number of illustrations has its drawbacks.  I find that as I look for some specific item, I get drawn down a rabbit’s warren. I can easily spend time just turning pages and looking at other objects and illustrations.  However, the excursion provides an enjoyable journey and may show you some things you did not know.

 

I think this book serves as a good general resource and starting point for researching details on what an object looks like.  It is a matter of a picture being worth 1000 words.  You will probably find that looking for a term or object in the Index faster than trying to find something looking through the Contents.

 

Here’s some samples of the drawings and illustrations;

 

 

Contents.  Just a portion to show details.  As you can see, the contents lists the subjects, but not in the more traditional method of a table of contents.  Hence, the index may help you find an item faster.

 

Typical sail and rigging drawing.  You can see the detail listing of the callouts. 

 

View of boilers.  Shows that the book goes beyond just ships with sails.  As before, detailed callout list for the page.  

 

Blocks and tackles.  Since I mentioned this page specifically (p123) it seems worth showing.  The ‘curvy’ view at the top is due to my not wanting to lay the page too flat for photography.  The layout is a straight, horizontal line of drawings. 

 

I hope you found this review useful.  Please feel free to comment and share your views.  

Edited December 5, 2021 by robert952

[rcweir]

The publisher of the 1963 edition, at least for the US, is Holt, Rinehart and Winston.  The first paragraph of the acknowledgements says "The Lore of Ships has been designed by Tre Tryckare, Cagner & Co., and is based on the ideas and plans of EWERT CAGNER."    I'd never noticed that and for all these decades have thought that Tre Tryckare was a real person!   

 

I agree that it's an amazing compendium of information.

[robert952]

On 12/7/2021 at 10:17 AM, rcweir said:

The publisher of the 1963 edition, at least for the US, is Holt, Rinehart and Winston.  The first paragraph of the acknowledgements says "The Lore of Ships has been designed by Tre Tryckare, Cagner & Co., and is based on the ideas and plans of EWERT CAGNER."    I'd never noticed that and for all these decades have thought that Tre Tryckare was a real person!   

 

I agree that it's an amazing compendium of information.

Thanks for the additional information.  I found the B&N comment at Antic Hay Rare Books site.  I should have cross checked it.  I did not find the book at B&N site.  

Like you, until I started writing this review, I assumed the the name on the cover was the author. This goes to show the importance of research on any subject.  

I decided to edit out the designer info.  The article was pretty long so I looked for a few things to remove.  The only thing that exceeds my verbosity is my habit of using a lot of words.  

 

[hamilton]

I received this book as a gift from my wife's business partner several years ago - it's coverage is very broad and the illustrations are clear (and often very beautiful), though I'm not sure it could be used as more than secondary reference for model building - admittedly this may be a result of my own limitations as a modeller!

hamilton

[Dr PR]

I have this book and it is a good way to "fall down the rabbit hole" just wandering through the illustrations. However, I find it is rarely useful for details of what I am researching. Often there are many versions of a particular type of equipment, and the versions illustrated just aren't right for my particular project. Still, it is an interesting starting point for understanding nautical mechanisms and terminology.