This 1911 novel about a twelve-year-old boy who falls in with a band of bloodthirsty pirates is a maritime thriller on par with Robert Louis Stevenson or Rudyard Kipling. At first Jim loves the excitement of his new lifestyle, but soon finds out he's in over his head! The author, who spent part of his youth keeping journals of his own steamship and windjammer travels, brings to life the beauty and peril of the oceans.

In the days before air travel, journeys to foreign lands were rather difficult undertakings that were usually reserved for the most stalwart of travelers. This is a major reason why the popularity of the travel writing genre skyrocketed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Stephen Graham was one of the most revered British travel writers during this period, and the essays and short works collected in A Tramp's Sketches represent an edifying introduction to his ...