7 h 28 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 28 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A captain can command a ship—but can he keep his clever plans from running aground on shore?
In A Master of Craft, W. W. Jacobs brings you to the London riverside, where small trading ships tie up beside the wharves. The master takes pride in his command and his cunning. But his crew watches closely, and managing people proves harder than handling a vessel.
Love and money complicate the business of staying out of trouble. Secret engagements sit beside the demands of sea trade, while an employer needs pleasing and a sweetheart needs impressing. She is not easily fooled, and a rival has competing plans. Here, a quick tongue and a straight face matter as much as seamanship.
What you’ll discover
- Cunning beneath the command Meet a proud captain whose confidence in his cleverness makes managing people a comic challenge.
- Sharp eyes among the crew Watch hands and mates study their master, with ideas of their own about his affairs.
- Courtship with complications Follow quiet engagements and clashing wishes as love becomes tangled with the business of seafaring.
- The sound of riverside life Enjoy quick exchanges and working London speech among skippers, mates, and hands.
- Dry humour, light touch Settle into short scenes and plain prose that let scheming people supply the laughter.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like farce, comic dialogue, sea stories on the Thames, quarrelsome crews, and gentle satire of courtship and Victorian manners.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A girl on a jetty starts the trouble
- A ghost, a woman and a thunderclap voice
- Three engagements and one clever excuse
- Uncle Barber's housekeeper plan backfires
- A mate sent to the theatre with the wrong girl
- The captain who drowns himself on purpose
- Lies catch up with every one of them
- A wild escape and a loss of everything
- What the comedy is really about
Who’s who
- Fred FlowerThe cheerful captain of the Foam, engaged to three women at once and sure he can charm his way out of any scrape.
- Jack FraserFlower's honest mate, who hates telling lies for his captain and finds himself falling for Poppy Tyrell.
- Poppy TyrellA bright, spirited young woman, left alone after her father's death, who is more clever than she lets on.
- Matilda TippingThe determined landlady of the Blue Posts in Chelsea, who knows Flower as Mr. Robinson and means to marry him.
- Captain BarberFlower's meddling uncle and owner of the Foam, who thinks himself very shrewd in matters of love.
- Mrs. ChurchBarber's good-looking housekeeper, who seems pleasant but proves to have a will of her own.
- JoeA tall able seaman of the Foam and the president of the crew's secret society, loyal and fond of a fight.
- William GreenA polite new hand who insists on being called mister and has a quick, scheming mind.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 28 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Un maestro d’astuzia in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Un maestro d’astuzia
by W. W. Jacobs · 1900
A sea captain engaged to three women at once fakes his own drowning to escape them all.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What would you do if you were engaged to three women at once? Captain Fred Flower, master of the schooner Foam, has a cheerful answer: lie, dodge and hope.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A girl on a jetty starts the trouble
The story opens at an old wharf in Wapping. A pretty girl named Poppy Tyrell asks for Captain Flower of the schooner Foam and finds only his mate, Jack Fraser. She waits in the cabin, tells him sea stories and asks about sharks, and Fraser cannot stop looking at her.
Flower comes back after waiting nearly two hours for her at the Wheelers'. He is flustered, and later that night he tells Fraser that if anyone asks, the master of the Foam is nothing like him. Fraser sees how odd it all is and wonders whether Poppy knows Flower is engaged to be married.
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What is A Master of Craft about?
It follows Captain Fred Flower, who is engaged to three women at once, and his honest mate Jack Fraser, who must cover for him. The book mixes sea life on the Thames with comic muddles of courtship.
Who is Mr. Robinson in A Master of Craft?
Mr. Robinson is the false name Flower gives Matilda Tipping when he proposes to her. She goes looking for him around the wharf and the Foam, never knowing that the captain himself is her man.
Where is A Master of Craft set?
The story moves among sailing schooners, London wharves and the Essex coast. It opens at Wapping, where Poppy Tyrell comes looking for Captain Flower aboard the Foam.
The author
W. W. Jacobs
1863–1943 · English humorist and fiction writer
William Wymark Jacobs (1863–1943) was an English writer of short stories and novels. He was born in London and lived in England. His books include the story collection Sea Urchins (1898) and the novels A Master of Craft (1900) and Salthaven (1909). He died in London.
More by W. W. Jacobs
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