Nautical Fiction?

[Spedius]

Ave or rather Hi???

I'm sure you're wondering what this topic has to do with RAT? The answer is absolutely nothing.

I get the distinct impression that we, the members, are great readers of anything and everything that tickles our fancy. Let us, together, explore alternative periods of historical fiction for the purpose of spirited discussions.

A few years ago my fancy was tickled by the books of C.S. Forrester, Alexander Kent, Dudley Pope and others who were writing or had written in this topic's genre.

One writer who's work I stumbled upon was Dewey Lambdin. Is anyone else familiar with the books featuring his rapscallion character Alan Lewrie?

So far his books are:-

The King's Coat
The French Admiral
The King's Commission
The King's Privateer
The Gun Ketch
H.M.S. Cockerel
A King's Commander
Jester's Fortune
King's Captain
Sea of Grey
Havoc's Sword
The Captain's Vengeance

I have all of them except for the last one. With the demise of Tall Ships Books, I might have to go to Amazon.com to find it, unless anyone can suggest an alternative source?

Please feel free to offer up additional books and authors for consideration.

Regards

Jim Poulton

[TraderTrey9785]

I'm pretty sure you've heard of Patrick O'Brian, he wrote the Master and Commander series books? I've only read the first four out of I believe twenty-one or twenty-two and they are excellent. The action isn't as fast-paced as I would prefer, but the dialogue and the plots are amazing. HMS Surprise is the third book in the series and so far it is my favorite. The movie focuses more on action instead of the storyline so it doesn't really do any of the books true justice, but a good movie as well. I recommend the series and they are pretty cheap on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Best of luck!

[Praefectusclassis]

I can sure second that! O'Brian (Brien?) is great!

[Spedius]

Hi guys,

This is basically a re-write of the opening post of this topic.

For those of you who live on the UK/European side of the pond I'd like to introduce you to an author of whom you may be unaware.

Have any of you heard of an American author named Dewey Lambdin? He writes mainly about Napoleonic Naval fiction and his books centre around a lovable scallywag named Alan Lewrie. The back cover of the first book in the series reads:-

"1780: Seventeen-year-old Alan Lewrie is a brash, rebellious young libertine. So much so that his callous father believes a bit of navy discipline will turn the boy around. Fresh aboard the tall-masted Ariadne, Midshipman Lewrie heads for the war-torn Americas, finding - rather unexpectedly - that he is a born sailor, equally at home with the randy pleasures of the port and the raging battles of the high seas. But in a hail of cannonballs comes a bawdy surprise..."

So far the series consists of:-

01. The King's Coat - Ballantine Books - 1998 - ISBN 0-449-00360-4 - MMP (Mass Market Paperback) (1780)
02. The French Admiral - McBooks Press - 2002 - ISBN 1-59013-021-9 - TP (Trade Paperback) (1781)
03. The King's Commission - Ballantine Books - 1996 - ISBN 0-449-22452-X - MMP (1782)
04. The King's Privateer - Ballantine Books - 1996 - ISBN 0-449-22451-1 - MMP (1783)
05. The Gun Ketch - Ballantine Books - 1996 - ISBN 0-449-22450-3 - MMP (1788)
06. H.M.S. Cockerel - Ballantine Books - 1997 - ISBN 0-449-22448-1 - MMP (1793)
07. A King's Commander - Ballantine Books - 1998 - ISBN 0-449-00022-2 - MMP (1794)
08. King's Captain - Thomas Dunne Books - 2002 - ISBN 0-312-30508-7 - TP (1795)
09. Jester's Fortune - McBooks Press - 2002 - ISBN 1-59013-034-0 - TP (1796)
10. Sea Of Grey - Thomas Dunne Books - 2003 - ISBN 0-312-32016-7 - TP (1797)
11. Havoc's Sword - Thomas Dunne Books - 2004 - ISBN 0-312-31548-1 - TP (1798)
12. The Captain's Vengeance - ? I still havn't got this one?

This highly entertaining series is well written, researched and very re-readable. If you've read or heard of C.S. Forrester, Alexander Kent, Dudley Pope et al. you must read Dewey Lambdin.

Copies can be obtained from www.used.addall.com check there first. A search on dewey lambdin brought back 537 titles.

Happy hunting and reading!!!

Regards

Jim

PS. Thank you Jasper for re-activating my avatar.

[Spedius]

Hi all,

I discovered the following whilst seeking out more examples for "Roman Poems".

It was so appropriate for this topic that, although out of period, I just had to include it.

"[i]646. The Revenge

A Ballad of the Fleet

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

I

AT Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away;
“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!â€

[Spedius]

Avast!

I found some more scuttle-butt on H.M.S. Revenge.

"HMS REVENGE
Galleon
Displacement: 400 tons Crew: 121 Armament: 46 guns

Prologue, Master Baker's Legacy

In 1577, a new design of warship slid down the ways at Her Majesty’s Royal Dockyard at Chatham, England. The ship, the 400 ton REVENGE, carried 46 guns and was the first of the new race-built galleons. As ships go, she wasn't very big (hardly the size of a modern day fast torpedo boat) but she would revolutionize 16th century naval warfare.

Narrower than her predecessors, with the towering poop and foc'sle of the older galleons cut down, the ship was fast and highly maneuverable - in fact for her size she quickly outclassed the lumbering galleons that had come before. The ship's cost was a paltry £4,000 pounds - a fantastic sum in those far off days but hardly amounting to anything at all in today's dollars ( a mere $5,800 US ). The experiment proved so fast and weatherly, that all the following Royal Ships were built along her lines. And her builder, Master Shipright Matthew Baker, a man of uncommon ability who, unlike most of his contemporaries, was also a skilled draftsman - in an era when most ships were built by eye and the skill of the builder and drawings of ships were mostly fanciful or at best rudimentary.

Revenge's Last Battle!

In 1588, Revenge was Sir Francis Drake's flagship during the battles with the Spanish Armada but the ship's claim to fame rests with the action at the Azores in 1591. Part of a small English fleet lying in wait off the islands for the returning Spanish Treasure fleet from the New World, Revenge was separated from the remainder of the fleet when her commander, Sir Richard Grenville, paused to embark his fever-stricken men who were resting on shore. Even then, cut off as he was, he might have got away, but he chose instead to stand and fight.

Out-gunned, out-fought, and out-numbered 53 to 1, the ship and her crew battled on though the night and into the next day. Ship after ship came alongside and tried to board but were beaten back with savage gunnery. Two of the Spanish ships were sunk, and the Revenge, battered and broken, with half the crew dead, staggered on. Fighting still. Finally, a desperate Sir Richard, gravely wounded himself, ordered the ship blown up. But saner heads prevailed and the ship, on assurances of good treatment, was surrendered to the Spanish - the only English ship so lost during the Elizabethan wars.

So, Revenge became a Spanish ship and the surviving crew were taken off and well tended on the Spanish ships where Sir Richard died several days later. The ship, however, lived up to her name. For she never reached port. Instead she was cast up against a cliff in a vicious gale with only the 200 man Spanish prize crew on board, where she foundered with all hands.

Her Legacy!

Since that day Revenge has been one of the most celebrated ship's names in British Naval history and numerous Royal Navy ships bearing the famous name have followed in her wake. There was a Revenge with Admiral Nelson at Trafalger, in 1805. A new one in 1865, another in 1889 and a fine, new battleship with Lord Jellicoe's First Battle Squadron at Jutland. This latter battleship survived both World Wars before finally being scrapped with the end of the battleship era. The most recent ship to bear the name was an 8500 ton Polaris Submarine, launched in 1969 and retired several years ago with the introduction of the Royal Navy's new Trident subs."

Jim Poulton

[Spedius]

Ave!

Here is the cover of Dewey Lambdin's "The King's Coat", his first book in the Alan Lewrie series.

Vale

M. Spedius Corbulo

[Spedius]

Ave!

A little something that I found on my voyages through the internet.

"820. O Captain! My Captain!

Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead."

I found this little gem here http://www.bartleby.com/42/820.html

Vale

M. Spedius Corbulo

[Spedius]

Ave!

Some more found during my cruise through the internet.

"777. The Wreck of the Hesperus

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

IT was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
‘I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

‘Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!’
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable’s length.

‘Come hither! come hither! my little daughtèr,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow.’

He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

‘O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?’
‘’Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!’—
And he steered for the open sea.

‘O father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?’
‘Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!’

‘O father. I see a gleaming light,
Oh say, what may it be?’
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savèd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!"

I found this poem here http://www.bartleby.com/42/777.html

Vale

M. Spedius Corbulo

[Spedius]

Ave!

Here's another one.

"650. Crossing the Bar

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

SUNSET and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar."

I found this nautical poem here http://www.bartleby.com/42/650.html

Vale

M. Spedius Corbulo

[Spedius]

Ave!

Here's another one.

"Sea-Fever
by John Masefield

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life.
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over."

John Masefield (1878-1967)

http://www.rochedalss.eq.edu.au/seafever.htm

Vale

M. Spedius Corbulo

[JRSCline]

Ah, yes, Sea Fever, I was wondering when that one would come up. My beloved Andrew is a great enthusiast of tall ships, and loves the O'Brien and Kent series. He's a naval officer, it figures! Thanks for sharing these gems.

[Titus Martius]

Hi!
I'm also fan of nautical fiction especially from the Napoleonic wars, here are other writers and their books which I consider interesting and good reading (not mentioning my favourite Hornblower series).

C.N.Parkinson series (Richard Delancey):
The Guernseyman
Devil to Pay
The Fireship
Touch and Go
So Near so Far
Dead Reckoning

Richard Woodman series (Nathaniel Drinkwater):
An Eye of the Fleet
A King’s Cutter
A Brig of War
The Bomb Vessel
The Corvette
1805
Baltic Mission
In Distant Waters
A Private Revenge
Under False Colours
The Flying Squadron
Beneath the Aurora
The Shadow of the Eagle
Ebb Tide

Frederick Marryat novels:
Peter Simple
Mr. Midshipman Easy
Frank Mildmay Or The Naval Officer

Patrick O’Brian series (Aubrey & Maturin):
Master And Commander
Post Captain
H.M.S Surprise
The Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune Of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbour
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 / Clarissa Oakes
The Wine-dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
The Hundred Days
Blue At The Mizzen


My father is a marine terminology advisor for O'Brian novels translation into the Czech language - you may find interesting also his technical illustrations such as the HMS Leopard for the Desolation Island (he is marine captain and expert on sailing ships with deep knowledge of nautical history).

[JRSCline]

Wow, thanks! That makes quite a shopping list for Christmas for my sweetie...