Author(s): Kate Lance

Biography & Memoir

Based on extensive research in both Australia and England, Kate Lance has produced a fascinating portrait of Villiers and the world he inhabited. Alan Villiers was born in Melbourne in 1903 and, from boyhood, had a passion for the sea and sailing. In 1921, after a lucky break won him a job as a journalist on the Hobart Mercury, he produced his first book based on his experience on a whaling expedition to the Antarctic, soon followed by his account of the voyage of the Herzogin Cecilie from Australia to Great Britain. Over the next decades he sailed all over the world, including his own ship, the Joseph Conrad. Lance depicts the legendary sailor as a man of contradictions, who lived for the sea and adventure, and who is now respected and recognised as a brilliant writer, photographer, journalist and adventurer.