The fighting was bare-knuckled, brutal and without mercy; but for one man it was the only way out of an even more merciless situation. Two boys, one destined for the sea-one for the prize-ring, come of age in a story that has more twists and turns than a roller-coaster. Along the way you will meet nautical luminaries like Cuthbert Collingwood, Thomas Cochrane and Horatio Nelson; notable figures like Beau Brummell, Lady Emma Hamilton, and the Prince of Wales (George IV); and famous fighters like Jem Belcher, Joe Berks and John Jackson. At the same time you will read unforgettable portraits of what life was like for both the common man and the social elite in the early 19th Century. It is a story, masterfully told, by one of the greatest story-tellers of all time... Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Such a spectacle may brutalize those who are brutal, but I say that there is a spiritual side to it also, and that the sight of the utmost human limit of endurance and courage is one which bears a lesson of its own."