Ashley stirs in a bit of everything: historical disquisitions, sailing lore, mathematical formulae, discussions of how best to knot a bow tie and what grip to use when rescuing a skater who has fallen through the ice. Practical advice is mixed with glimpses of seafaring life: “The JUG SLING or JAR SLING KNOT is invaluable on picnics or wherever heavy bottles, vacuum jars, or jugs have to be lugged considerable distances. Sailors find it useful on ‘wooding’ and ‘watering’ trips ashore.” Certain entries lead readers into musty library stacks, a Borgesian labyrinth of esoteric nautical literature and obscure authors. (“The BASKET KNOT was described to me in a letter from Albert R. Wetjen, to whom I wrote for information after seeing it mentioned in Fiddlers’ Green.”) There are pithy critical judgments: “Sailors ring all the changes on this knot, using any number of hitches. But beyond five the SHEEPSHANK soon loses distinction.” The breadth of Ashley’s research is awesome. “The CAMEL HITCH was found on the picket line at the Ringling Brothers’ Circus,” he writes. Of another knot, Ashley notes: “This is a coupling from an Eskimo seal harpoon line, made of reindeer marrowbone.”

Throughout, bits of autobiography peek through. Ashley describes his “apprenticeship in knots,” which he served on various whaling barks. His introduction to ropework took place earlier, as child in the whaling mecca of New Bedford, Mass.:

Before I had reached the age of nine I was proprietor and chief canvasman of a two-ring circus… The tent was made of carriage covers that had been more or less honorably acquired, but the center poles had been pilfered from the clothesline. Besides being canvasman I was also trapeze performer, bearded lady, ticket seller, and ringmaster. It was in the first of my several capacities that I required a knowledge of splicing and the use of sailor’s palm and needle. My uncle at this time being away at sea, I found a teacher at the wharfside and cut out, seamed, and roped the tent with the assistance of Daniel Mullins (now Captain Mullins) and several other boys of the neighborhood… Eventually the tent was cut up into haycaps.

These reminiscences have a Twain-like folksy-comic ring. But Ashley isn’t just a humorist. He’s a philosopher — the knot’s mystic chronicler. The act of tying a knot, he writes, “is an adventure in unlimited space… an excursion that is limited only by the scope of our own imagery and the length of the ropemaker’s coil.”

Ashley ends the book on a dry, self-deprecating note: “It is possible that someday I may find something further to say on knots, although it seems to me at present that eleven years is long enough service to have given to one cause.” In fact, ‘‘The Ashley Book’’ was his last word: He died in 1947, at age 65, three years after his opus rolled off the presses. He knew that he’d devoted his life to a quest that many deemed bizarre. His friends, he said, scolded him for wasting so much time in pursuit of knots. “More than once I was tempted to explain my prodigality as an individual’s protest against the materialism of his age. But even if that had been true, which it was not, it would hardly have been deemed a sufficient excuse.” Instead, Ashley realized, he should have just told them the truth: that he was working on a book. “Without a doubt my critics would have been entirely satisfied,” Ashley wrote. “The urge to write a book is nowadays accepted as ample excuse for almost any delinquency.”