The Mariner's Mirror, the journal of The Society for Nautical Research, first appeared in 1911. In its early pages, the founders of the Society published a mass of writing which laid the foundation for much of the maritime research which has been carried out in the last 80 years. The scarcity of these early volumes and wide variety of the material found in them has inspired the Society to edit a series of anthologies covering specific themes, and the first one to appear deals with the evolution of the sailing ship through the medieval and Renaissance periods. By extracting the best of the material, re-ordering it and adding the notes and queries which appeared in the same issues, the editor of this volume has created a narrative which describes the development of the sailing ship in both Northern and Southern Europe. Amongst the contributors are R. Morton Nance, H.I. Brindley and Geoffrey Callender, who are viewed as the fathers of modern maritime research. For those who have an interest in the story of the development of the sailing ship, these extracts should be a useful reference for enthusiasts and historians alike.