By the end of the sailing era the 50-gun ship had come to be regarded as a hybrid--too small to stand in the line of battle, but lacking the speed and handiness of the frigate--so was often dismissed as a naval architectural dinosaur left over from an earlier age. This prejudiced view has gone unchallenged in modern naval history, but this new book reveals the crucial role of the 50-gun ship in the development of both the battleship and the frigate, and explains the enduring role which ensured the survival of the type into the nineteenth century. True to the intentions of the 'ShipShape' series, it is the first extended study of a type which is both technically interesting and historically undervalued.