An American Lighthouse Book of Note

Readers of the last issue of 'Lamp' will know that the market is flooded with books on American lighthouses, so is there really anything left to be said about them? Our coffee tables are groaning under the weight of well-produced catalogues of US lights of the ocean and Great Lake states. We are bombarded with superbly photographed romantic images of all the lighthouses from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico; so what might persuade even the most ardent pharologist to part with even more dollars to buy this book?

Candace Clifford was a group leader at the recent IALA Workshop in Norway. Happily she took a copy of her new book to the meeting, where your reviewer had the opportunity to not only thumb through the work, but to chat with the author. Mary Louise Clifford is Candace's mother, and between them they scoured through a multitude of archives and documents to find original, unpublished material for this book. In doing so they assembled a wonderful, atmospheric collection of images which give a true, raw insight into the state of American lighthouses and their keepers from the emergence of photography to the turn of the century.

In the text of Nineteenth Century Lights, the authors have tried to be as accurate and honest as possible, and include comprehensive endnotes and a full bibliography. The stories alone could fill a book without the aid of pictures, and the pictures could stand alone without the aid of words.

In the brief time allowed for this review, it was instantly apparent that this book will quickly establish itself as a valuable historical and sociological work of reference, and therefore can confidently be highly commended.

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Note: The Association of Lighthouse Keepers is based in England.

 

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