The selected letters of W. S. Lambert, whose sevice in the Royal Navy during the height of the British Empire took him to China and the Mediterranean, where he observed the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. Before William Stanley Lambert became a cadet in 1883, he had already sailed 44,890 miles round the world in a childhood voyage that took him two years to complete. He returned to England determined to pursue a career in the Royal Navy. His letters home from the service, assiduously compiled by A. B. Demaus, record the experience of a capable, ambitious cadet during a time of rapid technological change and relative peace. The Navy's task of protecting the empire's vast assets had not been interrupted by a major war since Nelson's day. Lambert's sea service, virtually all of which was overseas, embraced service in two corvettes, an ironclad central battery ship, two cruisers, and a battleship. In his later career, he became the commanding officer of one of the earliest destroyers.
