The Vanishing Age of Sail

The Illustrated Journals of Kelsick Wood, Shipbuilder

By Simon Francis Brown
Published by Amberley Publishing, July 2025

Kelsick Wood was a nineteenth-century Georgian shipbuilder in Maryport, Cumberland, with a private passion for painting. He combined his two loves in his journals, where shipyard contracts and inventories share their pages with beautiful and curious watercolour pictures. The Vanishing Age of Sail revels in the rich, textured story behind these little books. It shows how each small shipyard on Britain’s coast played its part in Britain’s economic expansion in the nineteenth century. It is also a personal tale, and the faces which look out from Kelsick’s journals remind us that these wooden ships and brigs carried the dreams and livelihoods of all those who owned, commanded and crewed them.

Simon Francis Brown’s highly visual title speaks immediately to lovers of maritime history, illustration and the Georgian era, drawing in daydreamers and doodlers alike.

Paperback | 128 pages | 978-1398124912 | July 15, 2025

Bonaparte & Brimstone

A life of mixed fortunes in the Royal Navy and merchant service

By Simon Francis Brown
Published by The Conrad Press

Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat in 1815 came at an inconvenient time for John Monk, an ambitious young naval officer. Forced to rethink his plans, John turned to the merchant service, where he encountered storms, shipwreck and even piracy as he traded between Liverpool and the Mediterranean through the 1830s and 1840s.

Bonaparte & Brimstone is the fascinating and engaging biography of a little-known Georgian naval lieutenant and mariner from Parkgate on the Wirral and brings him unforgettably to life. Vibrantly written, it is the beguiling story of one man’s hopes and fortunes, and is ultimately an emotional tale of family and belonging, enriched with abundant personal documents, among them the remarkable diary of a stormy voyage to Italy in 1824. John Monk saw ten years’ service across the seas of Europe and survived the horrific bloodshed on HMS Impregnable during the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816, but he grew dismayed at his lack of progress and battled the Admiralty just as he had once battled the French.

Bonaparte & Brimstone paints a portrait in miniature of British society in the nineteenth century and of the country’s seafarers who attempted to navigate a path through it.

Paperback | 237 pages | 9781915494351 | March 10, 2023