Billy Ruffian : His Majesty's Ship 'Bellerophon' and the Downfall of Napoleon - A Biography of a Ship of the Line 1782-1836 - Hardcover

Cordingly, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747565376 ISBN 13: 9780747565376

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2003

Synopsis

This is the story of the Bellerophon, a ship of the line known to her crew as the Billy Ruffian. And like any good biography it runs from birth (in a small shipyard on the river Medway near Rochester in 1782), to death (in a breaker's yard a mile or so upstream at the age of fifty-four). In the intervening years, under fourteen captains, she played a conspicuous part in three of the most famous of all sea battles: the battle of the Glorious First of June (1794), the opening action against Revolutionary France; the battle of the Nile (1798), which halted Napoleon's eastern expansion from Cairo; and the battle of Trafalgar (1805), which established British naval supremacy for 100 years and during which her captain was shot dead with a musket ball an hour before Nelson was mortally wounded. But her crowning glory came six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo, when the Napoleon, trapped in Rochefort, surrendered to the captain of the ship that had dogged his steps for more than twenty years.

About this title

About the Author:

David Cordingly was Keeper of Pictures and Head of Exhibitions at the National Maritime Museum for twelve years, where he organised such exhibitions as 'Captain James Cook, Navigator', 'The Mutiny on the Bounty' and ' Pirates: Fact and Fiction'. His other books include Life among the Pirates and Heroines and Harlots.

Review:

"A masterly account that says as much, if not more, about the historical contextt as about the subject itself." -- Sunday Times

"Thrilling.so alive you can smell the cordite of the guns and hear the splinteriing of mighty masts and spars." -- Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0747565376
• ISBN 13: 9780747565376
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384