Condition: Acceptable. Please see the images for more details.
Cover art:
Endpaper illustration of bust of John Paul Jones by Houdor reproduced by courtesy of the Office of Naval Records and Library, Navy Department.
Blurb: “Of ALL the great stories that have come out of the making of America, none makes a more compelling historical novel than the career of John Paul Jones.
Pirate, slaver, captain of a merchantman at the age of twenty-one, commander of the first vessel to fly the stars and stripes, John Paul Jones, the man, is still a shadowy fig-ure.
History will tell you something of what he did, how his Bon Homme Richard defeated the British Serapis in one of the greatest battles in the annals of our Navy, that he was the last foreigner to conduct a successful raid on the British Isles. And so it goes-an incredible succession of events that ring down through the years.
But what of John Paul himself? What tragedy made him add "Jones" to his name? What kind of man was this who, when his ship was sinking sang out,
"I have not yet begun to fight"? What sort of human stuff went into the making of this most romantic and colorful of American heroes?
Commander Edward Ellsberg tells the story of Jones in the words of Tom Folger, a young Nantucketer, against the turbulent background of men and women caught in the sweep of the Revolution.
From the first this is a novel of headlong adventure. Drawing upon the most meticulous research, Commander Elisberg brings vividly to life the character of John Paul Jones as the men who fought under him, and the women who succumbed to his charm, saw him and knew him. The author's recreation of the sea battles, their daring and unconventional strategy, the superb seamanship of Jones, the fierce reality of the cannonading, boarding, fight-ing, makes superb reading. Commander Edward Ellsberg brings, to it all the vividness of detail and emotional power which took his readers beneath the ocean to the breath-taking salvage of the S-st in ON THE BOTTOM and which brought to life in HELL ON ICE the heroic struggles of the ill-fated Jeannette in the Arctic. And it is inevitable that readers should see in CAPTAIN PAUL a warning and an exhortation for Americans today. There are political wranglings in the face of national danger, speeches and delays in place of action. But John Paul Jones takes out an old crumbling ship with obsolete guns and wins his battles in the face of seemingly insuperable odds.”