Surgeon's Mate' is a detailed and bloody eye-witness account of a Naval Surgeon in the thick of military action, and is highly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of any historian or anyone with an interest in military history. Many of these earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwor...

Corsairs, gold and sabotage off the coast of Africa Naval adventure perfect for fans of Julian Stockwin and John Drake1663: Captain Matthew Quinton is thrilled to capture a corsair from under the nose of menacing Maltese Knight Montnoir. But his triumph is short lived. The 'pirate' is in fact the infamous Irish adventurer O'Dwyer, who comes with talk of a vast West African gold mine...Ordered by the avaricious King Charle...

This is Nicholas Monsarrat's final masterpiece, an epic tale of the sea and seafaring from the sixteenth century to near the end of the twentieth.Told from the point of view of Mathew Lawe, a young Devon sailor who is cursed after a spectacular act of cowardice to wander 'the wild waters till all the seas run dry', it is historical fiction but beset by real events. Monsarrat follows the great captains and naval adventurers from the Artic to the South Pacific. Lawe represents the spi...

Who do you turn to when there's no one left to trust? Epic sea battles and treasonous betrayalsIn the heat of a gigantic battle against the Dutch, the English fleet is mysteriously divided. A large portion of their resources is sent to meet a French threat which never materialises. Thousands are slaughtered. Could there be a traitor in the Royal Navy?As popular fury erupts, Captain Matthew Quinton is given the unenviable task of uncovering the enemy withi...

Broadsides, divided loyalties and revenge on the high seas1671: Matthew Quinton is on a mission into the heart of enemy waters, bent on revenge for England's crushing defeat of 1667. The Dutch not only destroyed English ships and slaughtered their men, but stole the jewel of the fleet, the flagship Royal Charles.As the mission starts to unravel, Quinton is faced with a dilemma. He may need to sail into battle not with his men, but on an enemy man...

"Jack's assignment: to capture the Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius from the French. That campaign forms the narrative thread of this rollicking sea saga. But its substance is more beguiling still." —Elizabeth Peer, NewsweekThe year is 1810 and Great Britain is again at war with France. British naval officer Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a command, living in domestic bliss with his young family—until his friend Stephen Matu...

Napoleonic-era accounts of life aboard Royal Navy warships: "Readers of Patrick O'Brian and C. S. Forester will enjoy this collection" ( Library Journal ).At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the British Navy was the mightiest instrument of war the world had ever known. The Royal Navy patrolled the seas from India to the Caribbean, connecting an empire with footholds in every corner of the earth. Such a massive Navy requ...

A rollicking tour of the history of the high seas with Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, 'Calico Jack' Rackham, Anne Bonney and other figures of maritime legend.Includes Francis 'The Scourge of Spain' Drake's audacious night-time treasure raid on Nombre de Dios; Alexander Exquemelin's fly-on-the-wall account of the 'wicked order of pirates, or robbers of the sea'; the journal of William Dampier, found stashed in a hollow bamboo tube, and much more. Witness skulduggery and malice, terror an...

According to the Preface: "I have in the following pages endeavoured to resist the temptation to weave a web of pleasant but unreliable fiction round actual occurrences. That which is here set forth has been derived from facts, and in almost every case from manuscript records. It aims at telling the story of an eventful and exciting period according to historical and not imaginative occurrence. There are extant many novels and short stories which have for their heroes the old-time smuggler...

Did you know…Until 1812 the British Royal Navy would seize Americans and force them into British military service. This was one of the causes of the war between Britain and the US between 1812 and 1815 (see Pressgangs).British seamen in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were extremely badly paid, but by helping to seize foreign ships they could earn rewards equivalent to a million dollars or more in modern terms (see Five Hundred Pounds Prize Money).If Napoleon...

A Royal Navy sailor recounts his adventuresome life at sea in this colorful memoir offering a rare look at early nineteenth century naval life.In 1803, at the age of fourteen, Robert Hay ran away from home to join the Royal Navy. For the next eight years, he experienced the trials and tribulations of a sailor's life. Intelligent and capable, he served a series of officers, all of whom helped advance his education. Yet he found the taxing conditions of life onboard d...

Chamier was a Royal Navy officer, who like his exact contemporary Captain Marryat is best remembered for a series of naval novels. The Life of a Sailor was his first publication and is usually catalogued as fiction, which may be a tribute to Chamiers story-telling skills but it is wrong the book is an exact account of his naval career, with every personality, ship and event he describes corroborated by his service records. By the time he went to sea in 1809, the heroic age of Nelson was ov...