What about the ordinary seamen who risked their lives in the rigging and slept like rats in the hold? Here the Adkinses give them the attention they merit ... Having read widely on the subject, the authors have got into the sailors' lives ... an enthralling book

A full account of life on the lower decks in the late 18th- and early 19th-century navy ... Roy and Lesley Adkins bring their world alive ... the material is so rich that this is ... a fascinating, even occasionally humbling study

This description of life in Nelson's Navy needs no narrative adornment. Sailors were expected to fight, and the carnage is impressively described. But in detailing every aspect of their lives ... this emerges as a social rather than military history. The rigours they were expected to endure are extraordinary, as is, in its own way, this wonderful history

[A] spirited and unsparing account

Written with verve and enthusiasm to convey a vivid picture of shipboard life

Gritty detail springs from Jack Tar ... Roy and Lesley Adkins, have allowed the salts of Trafalgar to tell their stories in their own words

Packed full of stories ... dozens of colourful layers

Expertly researched and drawing on eyewitness accounts, diaries and letters to loved ones from those overlooked ordinary folk ... Jack Tar gives a clear voice to the naval backbone of Nelson's era