Each volume in this new series is a collection of seminal articles on a theme of central importance in the study of transport history, selected from the leading journal in the field. Each contains between ten and a dozen articles selected by a distinguished scholar, as well as an authoritative new introduction by the volume editor. Individually they will form an essential foundation to the study of the history of a mode of transport; together they will make an incomparable library of the best modern research in the field. This is the first academic volume wholly devoted to the history of British coastal and short-sea shipping since Willan's seminal work of 1938. It gathers together eleven of the most important articles published in The Journal of Transport History over the last 25 years on the coastal trade of the United Kingdom, together with an introduction by the journal's editor. Each of the articles was seminal when it appeared and has not lost its importance since, marking an important step in our understanding of the economic history of the coastal and short-sea trades. The introduction, by John Armstrong, traces the present state of our knowledge on the role of coastal trade in the development of the British economy and contextualises each of the essays. The book starts to make good the relative neglect of this sector of the economy by historians and demonstrates the important part coastal shipping played.