Royal Naval Biography

[Peter]

ROYAL NAVAL BIOGRAPHY

Lieut. MARSHALL is preparing for the Press. – A NAVAL BIOGRAPHY: to consist of Genealogical, Biographical, and Historical Memoirs of all the Flag Officers, Captains and Commanders of his Majesty’s Fleet, now living.
This work will contain, the Birth, Entry, Professional, and other Appointee, in Services Promotions, Honorary Distinctions (British, Foreign, and Civil), Inventions, Publications, &c of each of the above Officers to which will be added and Appendix, a Copious Index, and a Chronological Table of Naval Action, and other Events of the last Sixty-two Years; the whole forming a complete Book of Reference.
Lieut. M. having made considerable progress in collecting and preparing materials, earnestly requests Officers and others desirous of seeing correct notices of themselves and their Friends to lose no time in sending communications, addressed to him, free of expence, at No.57 Chancery-lane, London.

Hampshire Telegraph, 28 January 1822.

[PMarione]

It was finally published from 1823 to 1830 in 12 vols (4 vols in 2 parts + 4 vols of supplements).
A major source.
It's very scarce today and I don't think there ever was a reprint.

Anthony Gary Brown has published an index at http://www.agbfinebooks.com/Publications/Marshall/MarshallWeb.htm

[chasbaz]

I hope it's too much to expect that there is a digital copy of the book anywhere?

[PMarione]

I didn't find one.

The book is very scarce.
Tooks me years to find a complete copy.

@+P

[chasbaz]

No doubt you will be scanning it in your copious free time

[stornoway]

Chazbaz -

Check out abebooks.com or abebooks.co.uk

There are several booksellers there who will print a copy of this book on demand. Prices start around 25 USD plus postage and packing.

[chasbaz]

Very interesting. Thanks, Stornoway

[alexlitandem]

Stornoway points us to:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=John+Marshall&bi=0&bx=off&ds=30&kn=Naval&sortby=2&sts=t&x=0&y=0


(Listings 5 to 8 on the page shown.)

But, Stornoway / Patrick, can either of you tell us, is the `Supplement Part 3' mentioned in listings 7 and 8 ( but not in listings 5 and 6, with the same ISBN Number ) suggesting only a partial work here?

Or does the `page' volume ( 420 pages ) sound about right for the full work?

[Peter]

Perhaps Patrick could get his copy reprinted and sell them to us at cost!

I have only ever seen the full set in good condition in libraries. The abe books seems a bit confusing.

[tonybb]

Chasbaz - Some of the volumes are digitised on archive.org
_________________
Tony

[chasbaz]

Thanks, but my guy is in Vol 7 and they only have up to Vol 4.
It will be very useful for other lookups though.

Hoping someone can tell us what is in the paperback editions, of which there seem to be lots on ABEbooks

[stornoway]

Not familiar with the contents of these particular volumes myself - but there's an 'Ask bookseller a question' facility on abebooks to check out exactly what you're buying.

[PMarione]

There is companies making "printing on demand" reprints of books. That seems be the case here as the book has an ISBN.
If you need the complete set you'll have to pay 12 x +/- $25. It's still far cheaper than an original set: if you find one (I have seen 3 in catalogs in 20 years) it will be more than 1,500 GBP if complete.

If you are interested in some particular officers, you can use the Gary Brown's index to locate the relevant volume and buy a reprint.

@+P

[cy]

Have a look at

http://www.archive.org/index.php

Most of the volumes of Marshals biographies as either PDF or Text downloads.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=royal%20navy%20biography

I suggest text as most useful, its searchable and much smaller than the PDF's

All 6 volumes of Charnock are available as PDF's at
http://books.google.com/books?q=john+charnock&btnG=Search+Books

Cheers

Cy

[tonybb]

archive.org has only just over half of the Marshall volumes. It is a miscellaneous collection of supplements and parts one or two of some volumes. I hope we will see more digitised sometime.
_________________
Tony