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Aeneas Press edition Victorian

The Tides of Barnegat

by Francis Hopkinson Smith 1838–1915

The book, and the century it came out of.

A New Jersey coast village, a doctor, two sisters, and a child whose parentage the whole place would like explained — over twenty years, with the tide going in and out. Smith built the foundation of the Statue of Liberty and the Race Rock Lighthouse and painted watercolors for major museums; the beach, the wrecks and the life-saving station here are done by an engineer who knew that coast. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Kensett and Larson among them.

One lovely spring morning—and this story begins on a spring morning some fifty years or more ago—a joy of a morning that made one glad to be alive, when the radiant sunshine had turned the ribbon of a road that ran from Warehold village to Barnegat Light and the sea to satin, the wide marshes to velvet, and the belts…
The first sentence of The Tides of Barnegat
A note on this edition

The Tides of Barnegat, by Francis Hopkinson Smith, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 288 pages
Reading time
about 6 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785501135178
The plates

60 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

Gathering Storm on Long Island Sound, John Frederick Kensett
Gathering Storm on Long Island Sound John Frederick Kensett 1872
New England Landscape, Alfred Thompson Bricher
New England Landscape Alfred Thompson Bricher 1859
Spring, Charles-François Daubigny
Spring Charles-François Daubigny
Mount Mansfield, Vermont, Sanford Robinson Gifford
Mount Mansfield, Vermont Sanford Robinson Gifford 1859
Landscape on the River Oise, Charles-François Daubigny
Landscape on the River Oise Charles-François Daubigny 1872
The Ball Players, William Morris Hunt
The Ball Players William Morris Hunt 1877
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of The Tides of Barnegat as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of The Tides of Barnegat as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

The Tides of Barnegat, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Literary Classics shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501135178, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of The Tides of Barnegat?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Francis Hopkinson Smith's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 288 pages, which is roughly about 6 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
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The Tides of Barnegat
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