The saga of Cimba - Richard Maury

The Saga of Cimba describes Richard Maury's 1934-35 voyage from New York to Fiji in the small, 35-foot, Nova Scotia-built schooner Cimba. It was a voyage of high adventure, undertaken when such voyages were almost unheard of. Maury and his crew of one survived two major storms in the Atlantic. In the book's riveting conclusion, he loses his beloved boat in another storm, on the reefs of Fiji. But what distinguishes this book more than anything else is the quality of Maury's writing, which over the years reviewers have likened to that of Richard Henry Dana, Antoine de Saint Exupery, even to Conrad. In Jonathan Raban's words, "There is a lovely clarity about Maury's writing: it's unaffected, free of journalese, simple and vivid. It's the kind of book that you can pick up a couple of years after your first reading of it, and it will surprise you with its freshness." First published in 1939, the last known edition of The Saga of Cimba was in 1973. It is long out of print. After a long career as a professional mariner, Richard Maury died in 1998. After writing this one lovely book, he never wrote another. We have exclusive publishing rights from his estate.;As a volume in The Sailor's Classics, The Saga of Cimba will feature a 2,500-word introduction by Jonathan Raban, which will explore Maury's life, the history and condition of small-boat voyaging in the 1930s, and the significance of this book in the literature of the sea.