Can you help publish this Boreham Book?The publishing of F W Boreham’s book, From England to Mosgiel, will cost approximately $2,000. It was first published by Boreham’s local paper, the Courier.
Very few copies of this short book were printed. Chances are you have never seen it, let alone read it.
If you (and others) would contribute sufficient finance so we can get this book republished, not only will your name/s and generosity be acknowledged in the introduction to this Boreham book but you will have a chance to read it, certainly for the first time. Most importantly, you will be setting loose a Boreham book that is currently ‘imprisoned’ in an F W Boreham display cabinet in Australia to give joy to hundreds of other people who enjoy the writings of F W Boreham.
If you can assist with a gift to republish From England to Mosgiel, click on this web site, F W Boreham on Mentoring, for instructions on contacting Michael Dalton and sending your money in the easiest way possible.
I have just finished scanning the first chapter which I am posting below to whet your appetite for publication, one of the earliest from the pen of F W Boreham. It begins with a letter to the editor, which FWB’s copy says, was added by someone else.
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A TUNBRIDGE WELL’S MAN’S VOYAGE TO NEW ZEALAND
To the Editor
Dear Sir—I am writing you in the hope that a few notes by the way, made during my voyage to New Zealand, may be of interest to readers of the Courier.
The following deals with the first half of the voyage, and takes me as far as Cape Town, and I shall hope to complete my story on reaching my destination.
[FWB writes in the margin of his own copy about the above: ‘added to my M.S.S by Editor or Somebody]
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It was on the afternoon of Saturday, the 26th of January, that we stood on the deck of the Tainui, about 36 miles off Plymouth, and caught the last glimpse of old England. And the rugged Cornish coast looked very beautiful as it gradually faded from our view. The hilly cliffs towered up in sullen majesty, the thin layer of snow which had fallen the day before still lay in the valleys beneath them, whilst the sun glinting and glistening on them both threw into view at the same time distances of landscape which had otherwise been entirely hidden from us. Standing out in bold relief against the jagged coastline stood Eddystone lighthouse, like a giant stepped down from his home on the hill. And as all this became fainter and more distant, a snowstorm blew up from the west, and tearing along the coast eastward, added to the beauty of the scene. We watched the mass of whiteness as it swept on o’er hill and dale, till in a few moments all had vanished—and England was to us a thing of maps and memory. We frankly confess that our hearts were more sad than glad as the “white walls of old England” disappeared; and the biting wind and driving snow were hardly calculated to inspire a more joyful state of mind. So we went below, had tea, and retired early—partly to dispel the sorrows of “farewell,” and partly to fortify ourselves against the terrors generally reported to await us on the morrow “In the Bay of Biscay O!”
But the Bay of Biscay was on its best behaviour. It was choppy enough to give us an idea of what it could do if it chose; it was sufficiently calm to permit of our sitting on deck, without indulging in morbid speculations as to which particular wave would wash us overboard. We entered it on Saturday evening, and left it very early on Monday morning, finding on rising that the foaming billows had given place to ripples that plashed pleasantly against the sides of the vessel, and seemed in perfect harmony with the soft warm Southern breezes which had displaced the chilling blasts of 36 hours before. Then for three days we scudded on across the waters, the seagulls that had followed us persistently from Plymouth, and a couple of porpoises that sported in the foam, being the only exceptions to the rule of “water, water, everywhere.”
Glad indeed were we, on rising on Thursday morning, to find that we were safely anchored off Teneriffe. And whether it was the reaction from the sense of monotony that had prevailed for the last day or two, or whether it was the beauty of the morning and the softness of the balmy atmosphere, I cannot say, but certain am I that as we stepped on deck that day the air seemed full of romance.
Source: F W Boreham, From England to Mosgiel, Tunbridge Wells: Courier, 1895, 1.
Image: The Eddystone Lighthouse