Warships of the Napoleonic Era

A collection of British illustrations of their ships and ships they captured from 1793 to 1815, with informative text, by the author of The Sailing Frigate.

Between 1793 and 1815, two decades of unrelenting naval warfare raised the sailing man-of-war to the zenith of its effectiveness as a weapon of war. Every significant sea power was involved in this conflict, and at some point virtually all of them were arrayed against Great Britain. Many enemy warships were captured in battle, making them of interest to British artists, engravers, and printmakers, while the Admiralty ordered accurate draughts to be made of many of these prizes. Consequently, for this era the ships of all navies, not just British, are illustrated by an unprecedented variety of paintings, drawings, models, or plans.

Warships of the Napoleonic Era reproduces many of the best (and least familiar) images of the ships, chosen for their accuracy, detail, and sheer visual power in an extra-large format that does full justice to the images themselves. These are backed by an authoritative text that looks at how the ships were used by the different navies, and explains the function and development of the apparently bewildering array of rates and types. This is a book that anyone with an interest in wooden warships will find both enlightening and a pleasure to peruse.