A Sailor of Fortune: Personal Memoirs of Captain B. S. Osbon

New York: The McClure Company, 1907. Hardcover. Very Good. Signed by Author(s). Inscribed by Capt. Osbon on ffep. Blue-gray cloth with white lettering and black pictorial on front cover. Lettering is rubbed; lightly worn at spine ends and corners; smudge on spine. Minor soiling on a few pages and some short closed edge tears. pp. ix, 332. The Captain's inscription reads: ''Mrs E B Mather / with kindest regards & best wishes / from / Capt B S Osbon / Janry 1912''. There is a second inscription below this: ''Received by the owner / Jan 16 - 1912. / From Capt B. S. Osbon / a loving dear friend / who passed away - / May 7th 1912. - ''. The memoirs of Captain Bradley Sillick Osbon (1828-1912), a naval officer and a significant American Civil War naval correspondent, as told to Albert Paine (also Mark Twain's biographer and literary executor). Osbon's memoirs covers a wide variety of naval experiences, from his initial experiences with the U.S. Navy as a young man, to whaling expeditions in the Arctic, confronting pirates with the Anglo-Chinese Navy, fighting revolutionaries with the Argentine Navy, serving as quartermaster in the merchant marine, meeting President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and joining the Union Navy, extensive experiences in and reporting on naval engagements during the Civil War, joining the Mexican Navy, and more.