"Man marks the earth with ruin - his control stops with the shore." Lord Byron penned these immortal words, and Edward Rowe Snow dramatizes them in these collected tales. There is the terror and tragedy of shipwreck survivors "rescued" by murderous savages...crazed pirates committing atrocities...entombment on a drifting, sinking ship...storms and floods unleashing their violence...sailors obeying orders to the letter, knowing they spelled their own doom. Edward Rowe Snow shows man at his best and at his inhumane worst, battling himself and encountering the furies of Nature.