Working as a teller in a London bank, he thirsted for adventure. After pooling his savings with a friend, he quit his job and went to sea on a 31 foot yawl. After a brief sail down the Portuguese coast they crossed the Atlantic and spent a pleasant season among the Caribbean islands until their money gave out. At that point they found work on a coconut plantation. When a hurricane destroyed their labors, they went back to sea once more. Puleston's subsequent adventures included a shipwreck off Cape Hatteras, a grim voyage down from Newfoundland on the schooner 'Marit', knocking ice off her decks to keep her from sinking, and an excursion diving for a treasure galleon on Silver Shoals.Puleston was then asked to join the Fahnstock brothers on 'Director' and sailed her through the Panama Canal to the strange Galapagos and the enchanted isles of the Marquesas and Tahiti. Meandering though the Western Pacific, taken captive by cannibals in the New Hebrides and suffering malarial fevers from the jungles of New Guinea, this bluewater vagabond experienced one adventure after another. He finally landed in Peking just as it was falling to the Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War."Travel abroad was far more of an adventure," Puleston writes of that time in his foreword. "Conrad Hilton was probably still in diapers, the Kentucky chicken colonel had not yet reached that exalted rank, and Pan American had yet to span the oceans." Blue Water Vagabond draws the reader into this now-vanished world.

    "She writes with spontaneous, confident zeal."--New York Times "It is her masterpiece."--Patricia Hampl

    In 1915, when he was 33, Baxter was arrested, sent to prison, then shipped under guard to Europe, where he was forced to the front line against his will. Punished to the limits of his physical and mental endurance, Baxter was stripped of all dignity, beaten, starved, and left for dead. In a final attempt to discredit him, authorities consigned him to a mental institution, an experience that would haunt him for the rest of his life.Against the backdrop of troops being mindlessly slaughtered at the whim of upper-echelon officers, We Will Not Cease is a story of extreme bravery and ultimate resolve. Archibald Baxter's lonely fight against the war to end all wars is a nightmare that Kafka could have penned -- except that the story is true.

    As Victoria's first Prime Minister, and father figure, he was responsible for introducing the young Queen to public life. He was also one of the great masters of the art of conversation and thus a wonderful subject for the biographer.An established classic that brings Melbourne and his whole period to life.