Yachting Monthly Magazine.: Illustrated. Volumes I and II, February … to December 1898.

London: 'The Yachtsman' Office,, 1898. A complete run of this short-lived, handsome, and highly ambitious journal of the yachting world. Complete sets are extremely uncommon, with listings on COPAC for the British Library and the University of Oxford Libraries only. The Yachting Monthly Magazine contains a wide range of articles on cruising, racing, yacht design, and voyages, including contributions by Erskine Childers, Linton Hope, Francis B. Cooke, James Meikle, and other eminent yachting figures of the late nineteenth century. It also includes plates after sketches by W. L. Wyllie and from photographs by Beken of Cowes. Volume I contains two articles by Erskine Childers detailing a cruise in East Friesland in 1897, which was to become the inspiration for his Anglo-German spy novel, The Riddle in the Sands (1903). Starting in Dover in August, Erskine sailed along the Dutch coast by way of the Frisian Islands, through the Kiel Canal, ending in Kiel in October. Erskine, an excellent seaman, made the journey in his boat, Vixen, a thirty-foot cutter, and former lifeboat. She was the model for the fictional Dulcibella, sailed by Davies and Carruthers in the novel. Erskine's time in Kiel and nearby Flensburg "had alerted him to significant developments in the Imperial German Navy and the potential threat these posed to Britain. He wrote up his cruise for the RCC Journal, as well as the Yachting Monthly Magazine. The resulting novel, The Riddle in the Sands, was both a warning against Germany at the time when she was not thought to be Britain's natural enemy and an advocacy of irregular small boat warfare with a plea for special skills of yachtsmen. Childers set out an invasion scenario in which precise knowledge of coasts and depths is crucial for an amphibious landing" (Jones, p. 2). Two volumes, large octavo. Original red pebble-grain cloth, spines and front covers titled in gilt, sprinkled edges. With 40 photographic plates, 24 folding plans, numerous illustrations in the text. Slightly rubbed and cocked, spines sunned, a few marks to covers, front hinges a little shaken, small tear on lower left of title page in vol. II, minor abrasions from damp on pp. 2-3 in vol. I, a few text leaves becoming detached, scattered foxing and faint marginal marks (also to plates). A very good set. Not in Toy.