Frederick Marryat

Captain Frederick Marryat of the Royal Navy well knew both the thunder of the broadside and the laughter of the gun room. Here he brings us a gripping tale "over which", said Charles Dickens on its first publication, "I have been chuckling, and grinning, and clenching my fists, and becoming...

At fourteen, the unworldly, idealistic Jack Easy leaves the luxury of his father's estate in England and sails into a world of action and adventure aboard the sloop of war HMS Harpy. At first, Jack finds it hard to stomach the discipline of naval life and, with his mischievous sense of humor, is...

In this seminal story of naval life during the Napoleonic wars, Frederick Marryat's young hero embarks upon a life at sea and finds it to be a rough school indeed. Simple's trials and triumphs, with his faithful mentor, Terence O'Brien, at his side, mirror Marryat's personal experiences. Among...

Young Jack Easy, full of his wealthy philosopher father's impractical notions of the rights of man and perfect equality—and failing to find much sympathy for them on land—resolves to join the navy, reasoning that "although the whole earth has been so nefariously divided among the few, that...