Before The Mast in the Clippers, Derrydale Press 1937. This maritime book is titled “BeforeThe Mast in The Clippers”, written by Harpur Allen Gosnell and published by The Derrydale Press in New York in 1937, and the book is a limited edition (#407) of only 950 copies that were ever printed. The book is 3/4 bound, with gilt lettering in a gilt-ruled box on the spine and “Derrydale Press" in gilt at the bottom of the spine, a gilt-on-red title block pasted onto the front board, blank endpapers with “A H Hepburn” inscribed in pencil on the front flyleaf, the half-title, a colored frontispiece of a clipper ship from a painting by Charles R. Patterson, then the title page with “MCMXXXVII” - 1937 - at the bottom of the title page, the limitation page, which says the book is #407 of 950 copies that were printed, with the Derrydale colophon and “1937” below that on the copyright page, one page for a Table of Contents, a two-page List of Illustrations, a one-page Introduction, and 283 pages of text. Gosnell was a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and the book describes the voyages of Charles A. Abbey while he was at sea for five years (from 1856 to 1860), based on diaries Abbey kept while on board a number of clipper ships that sailed from New York to California to the Far East and back. The book also has extensive details about the rigging of the clipper ships, the sail plan for the ships, drawings of the foremast and head-booms of a ship and much more, as well as six fold-out maps that track the voyages of the ships Abbey was on. The book is 8vo. and measures 10 1/4 x 6 3/8 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages and text, aside from a couple of pages with faint brown spots (the front and rear endpapers and the colored frontis and title page), the maps are pristine, the spine has a slight slant to it, there’s light rubbing at the heel and crown of the spine, light rubbing along the top edge of the back board, and specks of rubbing at the tips, and an invaluable book for learning about the purpose and voyages of a clipper ship through the eyes of someone who was there. #158 #1615