I did not set out to write six books about Arctic exploration. By the mid-1990s, while working full-time as a journalist, I had published three novels. I proposed to become a celebrated novelist. But then, during a three-month stint at the University of Cambridge, I discovered Arctic explorer John Rae–and that he had been denied his rightful recognition by Charles Dickens and other leading Victorians. I researched Rae’s story, marked his greatness in the Arctic, and celebrated him in Fatal Passage. It took me two decades and five more Arctic books to solve the great mystery while also publishing ten books on other subjects. Call me a compulsive scribbler.
This collection of letters is part of the canon. First, it brings the men of the final Franklin expedition to life. We hear them coming and going, speaking to their contemporaries as if in private. We marvel at the extent of John Franklin’s religiosity and his sense of having a Christian mission. And at last, we understand his refusal, during his first overland expedition, to turn back before it was too late. Instead, he stood waiting for a miracle, convinced that any minute now, Edward Parry would arrive in a Royal Navy ship.
What’s more, in his succinct introduction, editor Russell Potter dismisses theories that the final Franklin disaster was caused by lead poisoning or botulism, clearing the way for the truth of trichinosis.
May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth is a privileged glimpse into the private correspondence of the officers and sailors who set out in May 1845 on the Erebus and Terror for Sir John Franklin's fateful expedition to the Arctic.
The letters of the crew and their correspondents begin with the journey's inception and early planning, going on to recount the ships' departure from the river Thames, their progress up the eastern coast of Great Britain to Stromness in Orkney, and the crew's exploits as far as the Whalefish Islands off the western coast of Greenland, from where the…
As an engineer, I have constructed bridges, highways, and power plants throughout Africa, and on journeys learned and explored the continent's history. My novel, Ama, a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best First Book. My 200 plus sources, and excerpts from many of them, are listed on the companion website.
Despite the vast literature on the transatlantic slave trade, the role of sailors aboard slave ships has remained unexplored. This book fills that gap by examining every aspect of their working lives, from their reasons for signing on a slaving vessel to their experiences in the Caribbean and the American South after their human cargoes had been sold. It explores how they interacted with men and women of African origin at their ports of call, from the Africans they traded with, to the slaves and ex-slaves they mingled within the port cities of the Americas. Most importantly, it questions their interactions with the captive Africans they were transporting during the dread middle passage, arguing that their work encompassed the commoditisation of these people ready for sale.
Despite the vast literature on the transatlantic slave trade, the role of sailors aboard slave ships has remained unexplored. This book fills that gap by examining every aspect of their working lives, from their reasons for signing on a slaving vessel, to their experiences in the Caribbean and the American South after their human cargoes had been sold. It explores how they interacted with men and women of African origin at their ports of call, from the Africans they traded with, to the free black seamen who were their crewmates, to the slaves and ex-slaves they mingled with in the…
I grew up and have often lived around water and ships—Norfolk, VA, Aiea, Hawaii, Savannah, Georgia—and I’ve always had a fascination with things nautical. As a cartoonist, I’m of course always on the lookout for comics that overlap with this interest. Curiously, these sorts of stories seem to be few and far between in the U.S. but more of a genre staple in Europe—France in particular. I tried to highlight here not just books that I particularly like, but books that are representative of the breadth and depth that the comics medium can offer in art style, tone, and intended audience. I hope you enjoy some of these as much as I have!
This is a beautiful little book in an interesting format—a single image per page—that tells the story of a poet whose romanticizing about life on the sea is put to the test when he’s shanghaied and made part of a crew of sailors heading for Hong Kong. Don’t be fooled by Drew’s stunning cartooning that evokes the glory of the heyday of newspaper cartooning (think E.C. Segar, Walt Kelly, etc.); this is a book for grown-ups.
A poet is shanghaied and adventures on the high seas in this graphic novel: now in paperback.
The central character of Set to Sea is a big lug and an aspiring poet who runs up tabs at the local bars by day and haunts the docks by night, writing paeans to the seafaring life. When he gets shanghaied aboard a clipper bound for Hong Kong, he finds the sailor’s life a bit rougher than his romantic nautical fantasies, but he learns to live―and love―a Conradian life on the sea, all the while writing poetry about pirates, bad food, unceremonial funerals,…
As a queer/bi girl labeled as a tomboy from early on, I ached for a sense of belonging in my life that I only found in books. The adventurous women and girls that I looked for in the pages of books that were like friends to me spanned from Anne of Green Gables to Harriet the Spy. As I got older, I realized that important and awesome adventurous women had been left out of my history books, and only now are we starting to find out who they were, and how many women like myself were erased, and are now being redeemed through these wonderful stories.
Captain Liz Clark is who I would have wanted to be when I grew up, had I found her story in my teens.
There were almost no strong female role models that I could point to as a girl who inspired me, and illuminated a path of an adventurous woman. Captain Liz Clark built her own sailboat and decided to take on the entire Pacific Ocean on her adventures to find love, connection, and a relationship to nature and her own pure heart.
I clutched this book to my heart and took it with me everywhere for a month. Then I wrote Captain Liz to option it, so we can make a TV show about her life, because we need her story on screen!
Chasing a dream is never easy, but if you go far enough, it will set you free.
Captain Liz Clark spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. When she was 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most only fantasize about, she set sail from Santa Barbara, California, as captain of her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, headed south in search of surf, self, and the wonder and learning that lies beyond the unbroken horizon.
In true stories overflowing with wild waves and constant challenges,…
Since the publication of my first book in 1988, my emphasis has always been on history as “story.” That is, the stories of men and women in past centuries with whom we share a common humanity but who faced challenges very different from our own. My goal is to bring their stories to as wide an audience as possible. Whether they describe Newfoundland fisherman in the 17th-century North Atlantic, expatriate Irish men and women in 18th-century Bordeaux, or colonial New Yorkers defying British authority on the eve of the American Revolution, the common theme is the impact of trade and the sea on the lives of ordinary people.
Sailors — among my favorite books — is a vivid account of the lives of English merchant seamen in the 17th and 18th centuries. These were the years when England rose to dominance in global commerce and became the greatest naval power in the world. Acclaimed historian Peter Earle explores every aspect of the sailor's life: conditions of service, wealth and possessions, life aboard ship, the perils of the sea, discipline and punishment, sickness, desertion, mutiny and mortality, and the role of the sailor in times of war. Evocative, scholarly, and colorful, this story of England's "bravest and boldest" reveals how life on the waves was not all storms and conflict, tyranny and revolt, but also one of comradeship, adventure, and love of the sea.
A social and economic history of the lives of English merchant sailors in the 17th and 18th centuries, when England dominated the world in commerce and power. Drawn from primary documents and diaries, all aspects are examined, including conditions of service, discipline, mortality and war.
Two events happened around the same time, 1950-51, that made me want to go to sea. One was seeing the movie Down to the Sea in Ships and the second was a 30-minute boat ride on the sea. I was about 9-years old at the time. I think I must have identified with the boy (Jed) in the novel and unlike my younger brother, I enjoyed the thrill of the wind and waves and I wasn’t seasick. From then on, I had a lifelong love of the sea, serving with the Merchant Navy, having my own seagoing boat and for 22 years teaching navigation and sailing knowledge to Sea Cadets.
You do not have to be a lover of seafaring novels to enjoy Dana’s memoir and his vivid descriptions of people and places. Two Years Before the Mast is a masterpiece of writing. As an Englishman, I have always enjoyed reading American prose; Steinbeck, Hemingway, Melville, they seem to write clearly and to the point without the long-windedness of some authors.
How times have changed since the days when Dana was a seaman, (even when I was at sea in the 1950s 60s, and 70s) to today’s conditions for seafarers. My nephew who is a chief engineer with BP has the same amount of leave as the time he spends at sea, (4 months max) with the internet, skyping, and Netflix. He is highly paid and flown home first class. My contract was for 12 months, no leisure facilities on the ship, a letter now and then, and a train…
‘Two Years Before the Mast’ is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana, published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship starting in 1834. A film adaptation under the same name was released in 1946. It is the true story of Richard Henry Dana’s voyage aboard the merchant vessel the ‘Pilgrim’ on a trip around Cape Horn during the years 1834 to 1836. Dana was a student at Harvard when a case of the measles affected his vision. He left school and enlisted as a sailor on…
Since the publication of my first book in 1988, my emphasis has always been on history as “story.” That is, the stories of men and women in past centuries with whom we share a common humanity but who faced challenges very different from our own. My goal is to bring their stories to as wide an audience as possible. Whether they describe Newfoundland fisherman in the 17th-century North Atlantic, expatriate Irish men and women in 18th-century Bordeaux, or colonial New Yorkers defying British authority on the eve of the American Revolution, the common theme is the impact of trade and the sea on the lives of ordinary people.
In total numbers, impressed seamen were second only to enslaved Africans as the largest group of forced laborers in the eighteenth century. In The Evil Necessity, Denver Brunsman describes in vivid detail the experience of impressment for Atlantic seafarers and their families. Forced service robbed approximately 250,000 mariners of their livelihoods, and, not infrequently, their lives, while also devastating Atlantic seaport communities and the loved ones left behind. Press gangs, consisting of a navy officer backed by sailors and occasionally local toughs, often used violence or the threat of violence to supply the manpower necessary to maintain British naval supremacy. But impressment helped to unite Britain and its Atlantic coastal territories in a common system of maritime defense unmatched by any other European empire.
A fundamental component of Britain's early success, naval impressment not only kept the Royal Navy afloat-it helped to make an empire. In total numbers, impressed seamen were second only to enslaved Africans as the largest group of forced labourers in the eighteenth century.
In The Evil Necessity, Denver Brunsman describes in vivid detail the experience of impressment for Atlantic seafarers and their families. Brunsman reveals how forced service robbed approximately 250,000 mariners of their livelihoods, and, not infrequently, their lives, while also devastating Atlantic seaport communities and the loved ones who were left behind. Press gangs, consisting of a navy…
Kathleen Woodiwiss introduced me to the world of historical romance long ago. I also love action and adventure, so why not combine the two? I’ve done extensive historical research on both pirates and the regency period, most specifically the War of 1812, as well as actual historical accounts of brave women who dressed as men. Some were raised that way for various reasons, others did so to go to war with their husbands, still others because as women, they had little value in those days. I love writing thrilling stories about smart, independent women, and charming rogues. My books are full of adventure, humor, fun, and frolic.
This is the 3rd book in the Mallory Anderson series, and one of my all-time favorites. I adore heroes who are charismatic, intelligent, and slightly dangerous, as well as spunky, smart, and stubborn heroines.
I also really enjoy reading a good pirate romance, with plenty of shipboard shenanigans. This tale delivers it all. The captain, an ex-pirate, notices something vaguely familiar about his new “cabin boy." It’s not long before he’s on to her charade. I loved the way he tormented her.
It's romance on the high seas in this brand new edition of the third book in the beloved Malory series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Johanna Lindsey, now featuring an introduction from bestselling author Sarah Maclean.
Heartsick and desperate to return home to America, Georgina Anderson boards the Maiden Anne disguised as a cabin boy, never dreaming she'll be forced into intimate servitude at the whim of the ship's irrepressible captain, James Mallory.
The black sheep of a proud and tempestuous family, the handsome ex-pirate once swore no woman alive could entice him into matrimony. But on the…
I am a historian of the United States' global pasts. What excites me most in both research and teaching is approaching familiar topics from unconventional angles whether through unfamiliar objects or comparative perspectives. To do so I have approached the US past from the perspective of its emigrants and the global history of gold rushes, and am doing so now in two projects: one on the ice trade and another on the United States’ imperial relationship with Africa between the Diamond Rush of 1867 and the First World War. I currently teach at the University of Oxford where I am a Fellow in History at St Peter’s College.
It’s not possible to understand the United States without understanding its maritime past. Rouleau takes us onto the forecastle to show just how important US mariners were (how could they not be when 100,00 departed the republic each year?) in a vivid account with lots of surprising details drawn from scrimshaw and logbooks. These working-class diplomats shaped the foreign perception of the United States in port cities around the world through their (often violent) encounters with foreign peoples, their onshore carousing, and their spread of black face minstrelsy around the globe.
Many Americans in the Early Republic era saw the seas as another field for national aggrandizement. With a merchant marine that competed against Britain for commercial supremacy and a whaling fleet that circled the globe, the United States sought a maritime empire to complement its territorial ambitions in North America. In With Sails Whitening Every Sea, Brian Rouleau argues that because of their ubiquity in foreign ports, American sailors were the principal agents of overseas foreign relations in the early republic. Their everyday encounters and more problematic interactions-barroom brawling, sexual escapades in port-city bordellos, and the performance of blackface minstrel…
With my degree in journalism, you’d think I would be firmly rooted in real-world dramas, but all my time in news did was push me deeper toward my love of fantasy and romance stories. A natural optimist and a bit of a dreamer, I have always been a voracious reader of the fantasy romance genre. I love a story that can take you away from the real world for a time with amazing heroes, end-of-world stakes, and of course, thick romantic tension. I have a special fondness for series’ where I can watch the characters grow in depth or where each story covers a different character's perspective or experience.
I loved the high-seas, pirate vibe of this incredible book. The heroine's story starts in a harsh and tragic setting that I couldn’t help but get sucked into. And it was impossible for me not to admire Fable’s backbone, perseverance, and determination. She was so impressive!
I was immediately sucked into this story and rooting so hard for Fable. And the romantic tension that builds between her and one of the ship captains puts a perfect cherry on top of this lovely tale.
Seventeen-year-old Fable is a dredger-a freediver who excavates rare gemstones from the coral reefs that fill The Narrows. For the last four years, she's been trying to get off the island of Jeval, find the father who abandoned her there, and claim her mother's place on his trading crew. But when she finally makes it off the island, she discovers it may have been the safest place for her.
