Nautical novel list; latest compilation
Stuart Wier
Novels and short stories of sea life (Fiction)
Alphabetical by author's last name, with incidental information, and dates
when first published, if known. There may be errors!
John Barth Sabatical, 1982
Tidewater Tales, 1987
The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, 1991
Beach, Edward (submarine officer from WWII to nuclear era, Captain of the
Triton on the round-the-world-submerged run, and a good writer.)
Run Silent, Run Deep (WW II Pacific submarine action, on video)
other novels
Jack Becklund Golden Fleece
Ronald Bassett The Tinfish Run
Jimmy Buffett Tales of Margaritaville, 1989
Where is Joe Merchant?
Kenneth F. Brooks Run to the Lee, 1965. Chesapeake oyster schooner; a blizzard
Buchheim, Lothar Gunther Das Boot (WWII German submarine; very authentic; video)
Brian Callison A FLOCK OF SHIPS; A PLAGUE OF SAILERS; A WEB OF SALVAGE;
A SHIP IS DYING
John Casey Spartina, 1989 (modern working boaters)
Warwick Collins (titles unknown: "America's Cup trilogy")
Joseph Conrad (twenty years under sail and steam; a top English writer)
novel: Lord Jim, 1900
stories:
Nigger of the Narcissus, 1897
Youth, 1902
Typhoon, 1903
The Secret Sharer, 1910
The Shadow Line, 1916 or 1917
(also wrote nonfiction "Mirror of the Sea" one of the best)
Cooper, James Fenimore (Cooper's sea tales are supposed to be much better
than his famous frontiersmen stuff)
The Pilot
The Red Rover, 1850
Afloat and Ashore
Two Admirals, a Tale of the Sea
Bernard Cornwell (also author of the Sharpe's rifles series;
and novels of the American revolution)
Sea Lord
Crackdown, 1990
Storm Child, 1991
Killer's Wake
Wildtrack
Blue Water Green Skipper
Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands 1903
(pre WWI yachtsmen find German military preparations. One of the Best.
The classic adventure of cruising along the sand banks of the North Sea.
Compare to Maurice Griffith's nonfiction books about the same areas.
See also biography The Riddle of Erskine Childers, by Andrew Boyle, 1977.)
Tom Clancy The Hunt for Red October (nuclear submarine hunt; on video)
Dodson, Kenneth Away All Boats (1954): WW II attack
transport in the Pacific; on video
C.S. Forester Prior to Patrick O'Brian, regarded as the uniquely satisfying
novelist on naval life in the Napoleanic period.
Also wrote several histories.
(this is not E.M. Forster, another British author)
African Queen, 1935 (steam launch on African river)
The Ship, 1943
The Captain From Connecticut, 1941 (U.S. frigate captain ca. 1812)
Gold from Crete, 1970 (WW II stories)
The Good Shepard, 1955 (WW II story)
The Man in the Yellow Raft, 1969 (WW II stories)
The Earthly Paradise, 1940 (Columbus)
The Hornblower Saga
novels, with dates covered by each book:
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower 6/1794 - 4/1798
Lieutenant Hornblower 5/1800 - 4/1803
Hornblower and the Hotspur 4/03 - 7/05
Hornblower During the Crisis 1805
Hornblower and the Atropos 12/05 - 1/08
Beat to Quarters (U.K.: The Happy Return) 6/08 - 10/08
Ship of the Line 5/10 - 10/10
Flying Colors 11/10 - 6/11
Commodore Hornblower 5/12 - 10/12
Lord Hornblower 10/13- 5/14
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies 5/1821 - 10/1823
Hornblower short stories:
The Hand of Destiny Colliers November 23, 1940.
Hornblower's Charitable Offfering, Argosy May 1941
Hornblower and His Majesty, Colliers March 1941
See also C.S. Forester The Hornblower Companion, 1964.
George Foy Asia Rip; Coaster
Ernest Gann Fiddler's Green (1950): West coast commercial fishing
Twilight for the Gods (1956): The High and the Mighty
goes to sea. The movie of this one starred Gann's own
Barkentine.
(Gann's nautical autobiography Song of the Sirens (1968)
is a good read too)
Tony Gibbs Dead Run; Landfall; Blood Orange; Running Fix (thrillers)
Guy Gilpatric Glencannon Afloat
The Gentleman with the Walrus Mustache
The Glencannon Omnibus, 1937 (includes Scotch and Water,
Half Seas Over, and Three Sheets in the Wind).
The Second Glencannon Omnibus
The Canny Mr. Glencannon, 1948 (10 short stories)
Action in the North Atlantic, 1943
Best of Glencannon, 1968 (22 short stories)
(the Glencannon stories feature a Scots Chief Engineer on
steamers, a common character of late 19th century marine life)
Goodrich, Marcus Delilah (1941): Life on an early US destroyer
Thomas Haggenn Mr. Roberts, 1946
Donald Hamilton Mona Passage (?)
Sterling Hayden Voyage: a novel of 1896, 1976
His autobiographical Wanderer is a better book than
Voyage, though not a novel
Victor Hugo The Gun (what a loose cannon on deck can do)
Hammond Innes Stode Venturer, 1965
The Wreck of the Mary Deare, 1956
Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat Not To mention the Dog
(classic comedy of a camping trip in a Thames skiff)
Alexander Kent (more 1800-period naval action)
16 novels in the Richard Bolitho series (time period 1772-1798);
the first book is Richard Bolitho, Midshipman
Rudyard Kipling Captains Courageous, 1896. on video
Michael Kirk Salvage Job
Bill Kno Witchrock Storm Tide
O. V. Falck-Ytter Haakon Haakonsen (basis of movie Shipwrecked)
Sam Llewellyn Riptide,
Blood Knot, 1991
Sea Story, 1987
Dead Reckoning, 1987
Deadeye
Deathroll
Jack London The Sea Wolf
South Sea Tales, 1939
The Mutiny of the Elsinore (1914)
Tales of the Fish Patrol (1905): Oyster pirates on SF bay,
lots of small boat sailing
John D. MacDonald The Last One Left, 1967
Travis McGee series:
A tan and sandy silence
The dreadful lemon sky
The empty copper sea
The green ripper
Free fall in crimson.
Shades of Travis McGee;
others?
Alistar Maclean H.M.S. Ulysses, 1955
South by Java Head
Seawitch
Marryat Mr. Midshipman Easy, 1834 (Marryat was a British
naval officer in the Napoleonic wars, starting his career on board Lord
Cochrane's ship. Lord Cochrane is the colorful officer whose exploits were
later an inspiration to Forester and O'Brian. So this seems to be the first
such novel, and the only novel of the period written by a man
actually present.)
Weston Martyr The Southseaman
John Masefield (poet laureate of England, 1930)
Salt-Water Ballads, 1902
The Bird of Dawning, 1903 (clipper adventure; one of the best)
Mainsail Haul, 1905 (short stories)
A Tarpaulin Muster, 1907 (24 short stories)
A Sailor's Garland, 1924
Salt-Water Ballads and Poems, 1944
Sea Poems, 1978
Berkeley Mather The Gold of Malabar
McFee, William Casuals of the Sea, 1916
Command, 1923
In the First watch, 1946
McFee was a marine engineer, so his writing is set
during the heyday of steam.
Herman Melville Moby Dick
Billy Budd, Foretopman
Redburn
White-Jacket, or, the world in a man-of-war
James Michener Chesapeake
Tales of the South Pacific (island life in WW II US navy)
Nicholas Monsarrat The Cruel Sea 1951 (WWII convoy escort; one of the best)
HMS Marlborough will enter harbor, 1947
Three Corvettes, 194?
Farley Mowat (wrote very good non-fiction narratives, such as
The Boat That Wouldn't Float, Grey Seas Under, and
The Serpent's Coil)
Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
The Bounty Trilogy:
Mutiny on the Bounty
Men against the Sea, 1934
Pitcairn's Island, 1934
also:
The Hurricane 1938 (Tahiti)
others
(see also In Search of Paradise, about Nordhoff and Hall)
Ridley Pearson Blood of the Albatross
Henry Plummer The Boy, Me, and the Cat (fictional?)
E. A. Poe The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, ca. 1840.
mutiny and murder
D.C. Poyer Hatteras Blue; Bahamas Blue
Patrick O'Brian arguably the top novelist of life under square sails
The Golden Ocean, 1957
The Jack Aubrey - Steven Maturin books
(there is advantage in reading these in order)
Master and Commander, about 1971
Post Captain
H.M.S. Surprise
Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbor
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
The Thirteen Gun Salute
The Nutmeg of Consolation
The Truelove
The Wine-Dark Sea, 1993
C. Northcote Parkinson
more 1800-period naval action:
Devil to Pay
The Fireship, 1975
Touch and Go, 1977
The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower
Rule Britannia (short history of Royal naval, ca. 1776 - 1816)
Dudley Pope (more 1800-period naval action. Pope has also written some naval
history)
18 novels in the Ramage series (last two are just post-Trafalgar)
first book is Ramage.
also:
Buccaneer, 1984
Convoy, 1987
Jonathan Rabin Foreign Land (may be non-fiction)
Arthur Ransome (nominally juvenile; will appeal to the traditionalist and to
those who like Treasure Island. There is The Arthur Ransome
Society (TARS), for the enthusiasts.)
sea stories, in order, more or less:
Swallows and Amazons, 1930
Swallowdale
Peter Duck
Winter Holiday
Coot Club
We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea
Secret Water
Missee Lee
The Picts and Martyrs
Great Northern
Pigeon Post
Big Six
Coots in the North
(Racunda's Last Cruise is not fiction and is not for children)
Douglas Reeman (titles unknown)
Garland Roark Wake of the Red Witch, 1946 also on video
Tales of the Caribbean
The Wreck of the Running Gale, 1953
Roberts, Kenneth Boon Island (1956): Shipwreck on a tiny rock off of the
New England colonies
Captain Caution (1945): American privateers during the
revolutionary war.
The Lively Lady (1937): American privateers during the
war of 1812
Roscovich, Mark The Bedford Incident (1963): US destroyer plays nuclear
chicken with a Soviet sub in the Denmark Strait
Clark Russell (recommended by A. Conan Doyle)
Flying Dutchman, or, The Death Ship, 188?
The Mystery of the Ocean Star (short stories), 1891
Round the Galley Fire, 1893
Ocean Free Lance, 1896
The Wreck of the Grosvenor, 1899
Tales of Our Coast, 1901
Rafael Sabatini Captain Blood, 1922
Captain Blood Returns, 1931
Columbus, 1942
The Sea Hawk
Justin Scott The Shipkiller (sailor vs. tanker)
Hank Searls Overboard
Wilbur Smith (titles unknown; 2 or more modern adventure novels of
captains who find treasure and romance, rescue
Miami from burning tankers, etc.)
Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island, 1883
Robert Stone Outerbridge Reach, 1992 (modern yachtsman)
F. van Wyck Mason The Manila Galleon, 1961
Jules Verne Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, about 1870
The Mysterious Island (desert island story)
Leonard Wibberly Leopard's Prey, 1971
(young adult; a powderboy and the pirates)
John Wingate Below the Horizon; The Sea above Them
Richard Woodman (yet more 1800-period naval action) A Bomb Vessel;
A King's Cutter; The Corvette; An Eye of the Fleet; A Brig of War;
Baltic Mission; In Distant Waters
Wouk, Herman The Caine Mutiny (1951)
Suggestions for other titles to include always welcome.
June 28 1994 247 titles listed
Bruce Gary
also "Challenge", with a 12-meter premise
>Wilbur Smith (titles unknown; 2 or more modern adventure novels of
> captains who find treasure and romance, rescue
> Miami from burning tankers, etc.)
Among them: Hungry as the Sea, Eye of the Tiger, The Diamond Hunters
================
Also on my list of favorites:
Some America's-Cup-centered novels, whose authors escape me:
"The Black Yacht"
"The Challenge and the Glory"
"Duel"
"Regatta"
Some non-fiction treasures:
Pardey, Lin and Larry - several books full of their cruising experiences
Payson, Herb and Nancy - also several cruising adventure stories
Knox-Johnston, Robin - "A World of My Own" (first non-stop solo circum-nav)
Chichester, Sir Francis - "Gypsy Moth Circles the Globe" and others
von Reitschoten, Cornelus "Flyer" (winning the Whitbread)
Hunter, "Against the Odds" (inside 'Evergreen's IOR campaign)
Heath, Edward "Sailing" (former British Prime minister / IOR racing)
And some America's Cup non-fiction that is probably revisionist enough to
place it in the 'novel' category:
Bertrand, John - "Born to Win" (83 Cup)
Conner, Dennis - "Comeback" (87 Cup)
Smith, Patrick - "The Nippon Challenge" (92 Cup)
I'll look at my shelves and see if there are others worth mentioning....
Bruce Gary
bg...@fhcrc.org
John Camp
that was the proximate cause of his winning the Nobel Prize. You might also
add The Heart of Darkness, which is not generally about the sea but has an
opening that may include some of the best paragraphs ever written about the
sea, as well as an account of a voyage down the coast of Africa and an
encounter with a French warship; and also add George McDonald Fraser's
Pyrates. Fraser is the author of the Flashman series of historical novels,
and as much as I like the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin series, I like
Flashman better (and I think they are better books]. Pyrates is not as good,
and is not one of the Flashman series, but is still amusing.
John Camp
Stephanie Webb
> Pyrates. Fraser is the author of the Flashman series of historical novels,
> and as much as I like the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin series, I like
> Flashman better (and I think they are better books]. Pyrates is not as good,
> and is not one of the Flashman series, but is still amusing.
>
> John Camp
I'm interested to see that you refer to the Flashman series as
historical "novels". Fraser claims that the books are autobiographical,
and that he just adds corroborative notes. I'm no historian so I
don't know quite what to believe. It does seem incredible that
Flashman could have been in all of those situations. They
are brilliant stories, whatever the truth is.
I'm keen to know if anyone else has read them and what they thought.
Email me if you don't think it is of general interest to the group.
Steph
INTERNET: s.w...@nmr.ion.bpmf.ac.uk
JANET : s.w...@uk.ac.bpmf.ion.nmr
John Wexler
st...@nmr.ion.bpmf.ac.uk (Stephanie Webb) writes:
|> I'm interested to see that you refer to the Flashman series as
|> historical "novels". Fraser claims that the books are autobiographical,
|> and that he just adds corroborative notes. I'm no historian so I
|> don't know quite what to believe. It does seem incredible that
|> Flashman could have been in all of those situations. They
|> are brilliant stories, whatever the truth is.
schoolboy in "Tom Brown's Schooldays". Fraser has taken over the
character and constructed a later life for him, in which he continues to
behave just as badly but (the morality of the real world being more
complicated than the morality of school life) manages to pass himself
off as a hero.
John Wexler
Edinburgh
Brian_Smith
: I'm interested to see that you refer to the Flashman series as
: historical "novels". Fraser claims that the books are autobiographical,
: and that he just adds corroborative notes. I'm no historian so I
: don't know quite what to believe. It does seem incredible that
: Flashman could have been in all of those situations. They
: are brilliant stories, whatever the truth is.
I have read all of the Flashman books and I find them hilarious. No they
are not autoboigraphical because Flashman did not exist. He was originally
the brainchild of the author of "Tom Brown's School Day's", which is a tale
of a young lad at Eton (I forget the authors name). In the book, Flashman
was the school bully and did all sorts of dastardly deeds. He finally gets
his comeuppance and is expelled. One interesting scene is when the
headmaster (principal to you) asks Flashman what is his proposed career.
Flashman answers that he intends to join the army (i.e., buy a commission).
The headmaster speculates on the fate of the poor soldiers under Flashman's
command who will be lost in the foothills of the mountains in India since
Flashman, who flunked geography, will not be able to read a map.
Apart from Flashman's part in the proceedings, Frazer's novels are, as near
as I can tell, historically accurate. Except in the places that he admits
that he did some "editing" of the timing between events. He retains
Flashman's bullying, cowardly character but somehow makes him likeable
anyway. Flashman always comes out of the most terrible situations, not
from his own skills, but from pure luck and from hiding in a corner when
the going gets dangerous. Naturally he is a great hero whose name is on
everyone's lips. In one funny scene, he meets Tom Brown in London. Tom,
despite being the Disney-type hero at Eaton, has not fared too well
for himself. He tells Flashman how much he now admires him and apologises
for thinking him such a rotter at Eaton. Flashman is magnanimous, but later
reflects that Tom is still the same stupid little wimp he always was and
definitely deserved the treatment that he, Flashman, had metered out to him
at Eaton.
Great reading if you take them with a very hefty dose of salt.
B.S!
John Camp
The Flashman books are definately fiction -- a couple of other people have
mentioned that Flashman originally showed up as a bully in Tom Brown's
School Days, expelled from school for [if I remember correctly) drunkenness.
I don't really have a favorite Flashman novel, but I have some favorite
sequences, as when he flees across the ice on the Ohio river with the
slave girl, thus providing a key scene for Harriet Beecher Stowe's
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," which to some degree helped ignite the Civil War.
Once on the Illinois side, he runs into an obscure lawyer who promptly sees
through him. The lawer is one Abraham Lincoln, to whom Flashman says,
"Well, you can fool some of the people some of the time..." ect. I also
really like Flashman Among the Redskins, and the whole ride with Custer;
and I'm waiting with bated breath for the Civil War Flashman's; from footnotes
provided by Fraser we know that he won the Medal of Honor from both sides,
and was a Colonel in both the Union and Confederate armies. Fraser wrote
a really neat and very romantic novel called "Mr. American," about a rich
cowboy [he found silver in Colorado) who goes seeking his roots in England
just before World War I. The novel is quite serious, but in one sequence,
the hero meets Flashman -- and in fact, is picked up by Flashman (who is a
very old man at this point] in his carriage on the night that war is declared on
Germany and crowds are running in the streets. Flashman has to pee, and
orders the carriage to turn into Buckingham palace, where the crowds are
cheering the arrival of the nation's heroes to consult with the royals and the
top politicos. Flashman takes the cheers, takes a leak, and leaves...
Fraser is really one of my favorites...
John Camp
Peter W. Meek
Sea_; and maybe others. Also _A_Sprig_of_Sea_Lavender_ (not so sea
oriented as the others).
When this list seems to reach maximum, I sure hope it will be
available in some form on the net. Maybe as an addendum to
the rec.boats FAQ. I would be willing to format it into some
form of easily converted database. Maybe comma-separated or
tab-separated flat-file; even fixed-field-length, although
that would have to be uuencoded for most 'net transmission.
Is there a "standard" database format for the 'net?
--
--Pete <pwm...@mail.msen.com>
"Since at first there was no space, | Cao Xueqin ca. 1760
Things can have no proper place." | (tsao schwechin)
<I find this a fascinating pre-big-bang cosmology.>