Shipwreck

by John Fowles

photography by the Gibsons of Scilly

Jonathan Cape, 1979, ISBN 0224010530, black and white photographs throughout, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing to edges, stamp to publisher’s page, tape residue on covers, dustjacket attached to cover, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners (see photographs)

“It seems unconceivable that the ships illustrated in this book, with their air of permanence, of beauty allied with strength, should have ever met with destruction.  Yet the sea has claimed them.  The coasts of the Scilly Isles and West Cornwall have probably proved more lethal than any comparable area in the world.
Four generations of the Gibson family of the Scillies, starting with John Gibson in the 1860s, have recorded the last moments of the ships. Great and small, beautiful and utilitarian, which have met their end on these treacherous shoals and rocks.  This book is a selection of the best of their photographs – superb visual epitaphs of maritime disaster which show the Gibson’s to be neglected masters of the camera.”