Frigate Essex Papers: Building the Salem Frigate, 1798-1799 [signed]

xx, 334, [6]Color frontis. Illustrations. Map. Appendices. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. Four plans in a pocket at the back. Inscribed on the half title by the author to John Lyman mentioning his help with The American Neptune. Minor edge soiling. The author was Curatorial assistant Peabody Museum, Salem, 1963-1966, curator maritime history, 1966-1978. Managing editor The American Neptune, 1969-1979. Curator Philadelphia Maritime Museum, 1979-1984, editor-historian, since 1979. Board directors Council American Maritime Museum, 1977-1979, chairman publications committee, 1976-1981. Member Museum Council Philadelphia, 1980-1984, Society Nautical Research, Greenwich, England, 1969-1979. Curator maritime history Bostonian Society, 1967-1978. The author was on the Editorial advisory board American Neptune, A Quarterly Journal, since 1983. The first USS Essex of the United States Navy was a 36-gun [3] or 32-gun[4] sailing frigate that participated in the Quasi-War with France, the First Barbary War, and in the War of 1812. The British captured her in 1814 and she then served as HMS Essex. The frigate was built by Enos Briggs, Salem, Massachusetts, at a cost of $139,362 subscribed by the people of Salem and Essex County, to a design by William Hackett. Essex was armed with mostly short-range carronades that could not hope to match the range of 18- and 24-pounder naval guns. She was launched on 30 September 1799. On 17 December 1799 she was presented to the U. S. Navy and accepted by Captain Edward Preble. Herman Melville wrote about Essex in "Sketch Fifth" in The Encantadas, focusing on an incident off the Galápagos Islands with an elusive British ship. The story was first published in 1854 in Putnam's Magazine. Limited Edition (one of eleven hundred copies).