Frederick A Talbot: 3 books

There is an unfathomable fascination with the romance connected to the construction of great railways, yet little is known of the beginning and growth of the pioneering railways of the world, of the heavy tax that their construction imposed on the ingenuity, skill and resources of their builders....

First published during World War I. The book begins: "It is a curious circumstance that an invention, which is hailed as being one of the greatest achievements ever recorded in the march of civilisation, should be devoted essentially to the maiming of humanity and the destruction of property....

Romances innumerable have been woven around the flaming guardians of the coast, but it is doubtful whether any purely imaginative work is so fascinating and absorbing as the plain unvarnished narrative of how some famous lightship or lighthouse has been brought into existence. And the story of construction...