Jane's Fighting Ships, 1991-92

Coulsdon, Surrey, England: Jane's Information Group, 1991. Presumed First Edition, First printing this issue. Hardcover. Good/No dust jacket present. Quarto/Format is approximately 9 inches by 12.5 inches. 842 pages. Illustrations (some in color). Tables. Glossary. Index. Cover and pages have some wear, minor ding to rear board, and soiling. This is a large and heavy book and would require additional shipping charges if sent outside of the United States. Jane's Fighting Ships is an annual reference book of information on all the world's warships arranged by nation, including information on ships' names, dimensions, armaments, silhouettes and photographs, etc. Each edition describes and illustrates warships of different national naval and paramilitary forces, providing data on their characteristics. The first issue was illustrated with Jane's own ink sketches--photos began to appear with the third volume in 1900. The present title was adopted in 1905. It was originally published by John Frederick Thomas Jane (usually known as "Fred T.") in London in 1898 as Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships, in order to assist naval officers and the general public in playing naval wargames. Its success eventually launched a number of military publications carrying the name "Jane's". It is a unit of Jane's Information Group, which is now owned by IHS. Ten early editions of Jane's (those of 1898, 1905-06, 1906-07, 1914, 1919, 1924, 1931, 1939, 1944-45, and 1950-51) were reissued in facsimile reprints by Arco Publishing starting in 1969. All of these appeared in the oblong or "landscape" format that characterized the series until the 1956/57 edition, while from 1957/58 the present "portrait" layout was adopted, thus matching the sister Jane's publication on aircraft. Captain Richard Sharpe, RN was the Commanding Officer, HMS Courageous 1974 - 77 and Editor Jane's Fighting Ships 1987 -2001.