The Painted Ship by David Marchbanks – First Edition 1964 Hardcover with Dust Jacket – SS Lakonia Maritime Disaster

A scarce and compelling first edition of The Painted Ship by David Marchbanks, published in London by Secker & Warburg in 1964. This gripping work recounts the tragic fire aboard the Greek liner SS Lakonia in December 1963, one of the most dramatic maritime disasters of the twentieth century.

Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, Marchbanks reconstructs the terrifying events aboard the stricken liner as fire spread through the ship, lifeboats failed, and passengers and crew struggled to survive in the Atlantic. The result is The Painted Ship, a vivid and highly readable account of the disaster, making this an important title for collectors of maritime history, shipping disasters, ocean liners and twentieth-century travel.

This copy of The Painted Ship is an attractive first edition retaining its striking original dust jacket with the iconic SS Lakonia life ring design. The book is bound in the publisher’s original red cloth with black lettering to the spine and remains a particularly clean example.

Condition – Near Fine

Near Fine in a Very Good+ dust jacket. Red cloth boards are crisp and bright, binding is firm, and the dust jacket shows only light shelf wear and very slight rubbing at the extremities. Minor foxing is present to a few pages and page edges, but the book remains a particularly clean and attractive copy overall.