The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze

A definitive study of the Yangtze craft, complete with carefully detailed scale drawings, the result of the author's research and experience during his 30-year career as a river inspector in China. A lavishly produced volume.
"There is really nothing to compare it with, and it is unlikely that it will be superseded in the foreseeable future."--The New York Times


"Definitive in its genre."--Publishers Weekly


"The best single reference on the subject."--American Neptune


"Worcester's imposing work has no equal and not even a close competitor."--Dolphin Book Club News


Ever since Marco Polo came home from Cathay some seven hundred years ago with colorful tales of a strange land, westerners have marveled at the timelessness and vastness of China, and the infinite variety of all things Chinese. One such aspect of China was noted by another traveller, Gabriel Magaillans, who nearly three hundred years ago wrote ". . . there are more vessels in China than in all the rest of the known world." In a country so dependent on water transportation for thousands of years, this was most true. The rivers and harbors of China teem with junks and sampans, and almost as amazing as their numbers is the multitudinous variety of types, evolved over the centuries to meet the needs of special and sometimes rather exotic kinds of waterborne commerce.


What one brings home from China depends in part on what one took there; what Worcester took was curiosity and understanding, and what he brought back was the warp and woof with which he has masterfully woven a rich fabric of Chinese culture and customs.


The China seen by Marco Polo has disappeared, and that known by Worcester is fast going. Here is a chance to let an old China hand take you to one of the great rivers of the world for a last look at a timeless land just before time there ceased to stand still.

In The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze, G. R. G. Worcester has written and illustrated a definitive work that will excite the historian, traveler, collector, naval architect, sailor, and modelmaker alike. "This unique book is a comprehensive and authoritative record of the vessels which for centuries provided practically the sole means of communication and transportation in the vast area drained by one of the world's greatest waterways," writes L. K. Little, former Inspector General of the Chinese Customs Service. "These remarkable ships deserve an unusual biographer, and in Mr. Worcester they have found one." 656 pages with over 900 illustrations, fully indexed, including margin notes and personal comments on the author's 30 years among the resourceful and ingenious junkmen of the Yangtze River.