The Two Sunday Sailors: How It All Started
This newspaper exists in two distinct forms.
The first is the original Sunday Sailor — a fan paper printed for the Old Time Sailors, the 21-piece shanty band founded by this publication's editor. Set in 1841, written in character, fifty pages of seafaring tales, traditional music education, sailor lore, and Victorian-era merchandise. It is distributed by hand at the band's live shows, in pubs and concert halls and festival fields across the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Argentina. There is no news in it. No investigations. Nothing from the serious world. The crew of Daring Nicholas lives there, the Sailorette sails there, and none of its stories are true. It is a piece of theatre, printed on paper, passed on at the next gig.
The second is the publication you are reading now. Same masthead, same harbour, same publishing house — Harbour Press, Port Cork, Ireland. But this edition is a serious music journalism publication, governed by Evidence Before Purpose. The articles are investigations. The arguments are submitted to the Roundtable and the Sunday Mail. Its printed object is described below.
The two forms share a visual universe and a heritage. They do different work.
The Print Edition
The Sunday Sailor publishes a print edition quarterly — a curated selection of the investigations, debates, and correspondence published over the preceding three months, designed and typeset for paper in the Victorian broadsheet tradition that informs everything we do.
The print edition is not a reproduction of the website. It is an editorial selection, re-laid for paper, with expanded introductions, additional illustration, and material that benefits from the sustained attention that print demands and the screen rarely receives.
How to Receive the Print Edition
The print edition is delivered, printed, only to subscribers. There is no PDF download. There is no digital edition. The Sunday Sailor in print is a physical object — typeset for paper, sent by post — and it goes out only to readers who have earned the right to receive it through subscription.
If you would like to stock the print edition at your venue, library, or cultural institution, write to us at sundaymail@thesundaysailor.com.