In June 1816, the Medusa, flagship of a French expedition to repossess the colony of Senegal from the British, set sail. She never arrived at her destination. Commanded by an incompetent Captain, she ran aground off the desolate West African coast. The evacuation of the frigate was chaotic and cowardly and 146 men and one woman were herded aboard a makeshift raft which was then abandoned in mid-ocean, cut loose by the convoy of lifeboats which had pledged to tow it to safety. The drifting raft carried those who survived to the very frontiers of human experience. Crazed, parched and starving, the diminishing band slaughtered mutineers, ate their dead companions and organized a tactical extermination of the weakest among them. Meanwhile, the victims from the boats who made it ashore, undertook a dangerous two-hundred mile slog through the sweltering, mid-summer Sahara.

This survey has illustrations of Staffordshire pottery; needlework and embroidery; popular prints and the scenery for toy theatres; carved wood, tombstones, ships' figureheads, shop signs, door-knockers, fire plates, horse brasses, marionettes, weathervanes, corn dollies, clay pipes, toys, gingerbread stamps, snuff-boxes and more - much more - besides. No collector should be without it! With 118 plates and numerous line drawings.