Pimlico has made a habit of shining an inquisitive torch into the darker crevices of social history, and this intriguing little volume is no exception. Suzanne J. Stark has an engaging style and an inquiring mind, and when she turns them both on such topics as the custom of allowing prostitutes to live with the crews of warships in port, or the willingness of women to join the navy at a time when most men had to be forced on board ship by press gangs, the results are fascinating. Her final chapter, which recounts the autobiography of one Mary Lacy, alias William Chandler, who served as a seaman and shipwright in the Royal Navy for twelve years before her gender was discovered, is - literally - a revelation.
By Arminta Wallace