First published in 1944 & now reissued with a new section of black & white plates this book has become a classic on its subject & may be said to have started a revival of interest in the English waterways. It was on a spring day in 1939 that L.T.C Rolt first stepped aboard Cressy. This engaging book tells the story of how he & his wife adapted & fitted out the boat as a home & recreates the journey of some 400 miles that they made along the network of waterways in the Midlands. It recalls the boatmen & their craft & celebrates the then seemingly timeless nature of the English countryside through which they passed. As Sir Compton Mackenzie wrote it is an elegy of classic restraint unmarred by any trace of sentiment for a way of life & a rural landscape which have now all but disappeared. His Pen he continued is as sure as the brush of a Cotman. Narrow Boat will go on the shelf with White & Cobbett & Hudson.