Authors Mor - Mye
Moray, Helga (1908-1996)
Dark Fury. Museum Press, 1957. 318 pages
Clear to Sail. Hale, 1974. 243 pages
"A tempestuous novel of the men who sailed the high seas ... and the women who loved them"
The Ruby Fleet. Hale, 1976. 221 pages
Potboiler, where British skipper carries off an Indian wife, gaining the enmity of both British and Indian society. Set in the 1800s.
Sweet and Bitter Fancy. Hale, 1980. 229 pages
Mordaunt, Elinor [pseud. Evelyn May Clowes] (1872-1942)
To Sea! To Sea! Frederick Muller, 1943. 170 pages
Billy Faile finds himself a ship's boy on board a windjammer bound for Australia during mid-Victorian England
Morgan, Charles (1894-1958)
The Gunroom. A & C Black, 1919. 348 pages
Story of the brutal life of a midshipman in a pre-WW I Royal Navy ship. Allegedly suppressed by the Navy. A contemporary review says it was wriiten with the purpose of showing a national abuse.
Morgan, Douglas
Tiger Cruise. Forge, 2000. 285 pages
"The Strait of Malacca lies between Malaysia and Indonesia. It's the busiest shipping lane in the world. And for as long as anyone can remember it's been a nest of pirates. In the Age of Sail they'd swarm over the side, armed with knives and cutlasses. These days they're using modern methods. One of them, Michael Prasetyo, a man with a business degree from Wharton and a bad attitude has made some frighteningly ambitious plans." -- Jacket. A corrected edition of this novel was published in 2002.
Morgan, Geoffrey
Cameras on the Conways. Lutterworth, 1954. 216 pages
Conways Ahoy. Lutterworth, 1955. 208 pages
Morgan, M. Howard [pseud. Malcolm H. Mendey]
The Jack Vizzard Chronicles:
First Fleet. self, 2011. 452 pages
With the American colonies closed to Britain, the gaols overflowed, the criminal under-class posed a threat to the property classes. A solution was required. The answer lay in the continent on the far side of the world - Terra Australis Incognita and make use of the criminal class to develop a new colony, a source of trade and a base far from home for England's Royal Navy. The First Fleet of 11 ships left Portsmouth in May 1787 tasked with that objective. The First Fleet of convicts. The experiment so nearly failed. Jack Vizzard, a young marine officer of affluent background, becomes a member of this expedition. Lawyer, newly commissioned officer and murderer, Vizzard finds his acts of betrayal follow him to New South Wales.
The Glorious First. self, 2014. 202 pages
War with Revolutionary France takes Lieutenant Vizzard to the coasts of France. He is to escort a government agent known to carry valuable intelligence of vital importance to Prime Minister Pitt's government. Captured by a traitor he must escape France. Can he trust the beautiful Frenchwoman who befriends him? His work leads directly to the first fleet action of the Revolutionary War with France and to the battle known in Britain as The Glorious First of June where heroes and cowards will die together.
St Valentin's Fleet. Penmore, 2024. 224 pages
Sir John Jervis, Commander-in Chief of the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet, needs more ships and more marines if he is to engage the Spaniards in a naval battle. Vizzard is deployed to HMS Captain, a 74-gun ship of the line, the flagship of a young commodore named Horatio Nelson who has the trust and approbation of Admiral Jervis. Jervis’s ships find the Spanish fleet on 14 February 1797, Saint Valentine’s Day, and the battle begins off Cabo de São Vicente on Portugal’s southern coast. It is here that Commodore Horatio Nelson, ignoring orders, risks his career and the lives of the king’s men and marines to test a revolutionary naval strategy.
Morley, F. V. (Frank Vigor) (1899-1985)
East South East. Harcourt, Brace, 1929. 347 pages
A boy runs away in 1806, goes whaling and later hunts for treasure on an island south of New Zealand.
The Wreck of the Active, a story of adventure. Houghton Mifflin, 1936. 347 pages
In the early 1800s two Americans sail in the schooner ACTIVE from London to Pacific Northwest around the Horn, encountering adventures with storms and savages. U.K. title: War Paint.
Mörne, Håkan (1900-1961)
Slaves to the Sea. Elek, 1956. 181 pages
Translation of the prize winning novel Havets Bröd. A young Finn finds adventure and himself aboard a tramp steamer voyaging from Rotterdam to Archangelsk to Scotland to New York.
Morrill, George P. (1920-2015)
Dark Sea Running. McGraw-Hill, 1959. 211 pages
Novel about a merchant marine captain commanding a T-2 tanker across the Atlantic convoy routes during WW II.
Morris, Donald R. (1924-2002)
Warm Bodies. Simon and Schuster, 1957. 204 pages
Life aboard an LST in the peacetime navy during the 1950s. Story relates how the the LST's bachelor XO falls in love over the Christmas holidays, when the nearly-empty ship is visited by a woman reporter, then pursues her through various misadventures to the altar. Fimed as All Hands on Deck.
China Station. Farrar, Straus, and Young, 1951. 276 pages
Protagonist is an enlisted man aboard a destroyer based at Tsingtao in late 1940s. His White Russian girl friend is evacuated to Shanghai when Communist forces take Tsingtao.
Morrison, John [Gordon] (1904-1988)
Sailors Belong Ships. Dolphin, 1947. 199 pages
Short stories mainly based on the waterfronts and docks of Melbourne
Port of Call. Cassell, 1950. 296 pages
Autobiographical novel about a sailor who abandons his life at sea to take work cutting blackberries and milking cows in the Dandenongs
Black Cargo and Other Stories. Australasian Book Society, 1955. 260 pages
More stories set on Melbourne's waterfront
Twenty-Three [Stories]. Australasian Book Society, 1962. 212 pages
Morrow, Honoré [Willsie] (1880-1940)
Yonder Sails the Mayflower. William Morrow, 1934. 368 pages
Morrow, James (1947- )
Towing Jehovah. Harcourt Brace, 1994. 371 pages
A satirical novel on the death of God. For inexplicable reasons he dies and falls into the sea, and the Vatican hires a supertanker to secretly tow his two-mile-long body to the Arctic for preservation. But the secret leaks out and everyone gets in on the act, exploiting God's death to their own end.
Morton, Frederic (1924-2015)
The Witching Ship. Random House, 1960. 271 ppages
An eerie, intense and unpleasant fascination characterizes this story of an eight days' voyage of a luxury cruise ship-Dutch and presumably neutral- pressed into service early in the war as a transport ship for refugees, only to be caught in its final days, with the news that Rotterdam had been blasted from the sky. Those eight days are mirrored in a vacuum: on the side, the terrors of escaping Hitler's Europe, with shreds of dignity and hastily gathered portable possessions and memories of past grandeurs and future obliquies; on the other, a thin scattering of Americans, homeward bound, seeking fleeting sensations snatched in passing. There's underlying tragedy, mordaunt humor, unbearable cruelty and always fear as bits of many stories are woven into a kaleidoscope that at the end breaks once more into scattered, meaningless fragments.
Morton, Stanley [pseud. Stanley Freedgood (1915-1994) & Morton Freedgood (1913-2006)]
Yankee Trader. Sheridan House, 1947. 343 pages
Male fantasy adventures of a Revolutionary War sea captain
Moss, Chloë
Corrina, Corrina. Headlong, 2022. 95 pages
A play. Moss’s heroine is encouraged to go to sea as part of an equal opportunities campaign, designed to increase the proportion of women working in the Merchant Marine industry. When Corrina tries to report abuse, a three-way encounter with her and the man who assaulted her is set up by her captain, a man who thinks he is progressive on matters of equality. It does not go well.
Motion, Andrew
Silver: Return to Treasure Island. Jonathan Cape, 2012. 432 pages
In the marshy eastern reaches of the Thames lies the Hispaniola, an inn kept by Jim Hawkins and his son. Young Jim spends his days roaming the mist-shrouded estuaries, running errands for his father and listening to his stories in the taproom; tales of adventures on the high seas, of curses, murder and revenge, black spots and buried treasure - and of a man with a wooden leg. Late one night, a mysterious girl named Natty arrives on the river with a request for Jim from her father - Long John Silver. Aged and weak, but still possessing a strange power, the pirate proposes that Jim and Natty sail to Treasure Island in search of Captain Flint's hidden bounty, the 'beautiful bar silver' left behind many years before. Silver has chartered a ship and a hardy crew for this purpose, whose captain is waiting only for the map, now locked away at the Hispaniola.
Mott, Lawrence [Jordan Lawrence Mott IV] (1881–1931)
To the Credit of the Sea. Harper & Brothers, 1907. 295 pages
Mounce, David R.
Operation Cuttlefish. Pyramid, 1972. 222 pages
Paul Fox is sent along with his lover to the Bahamas to uncover the Soviet's system of moving key espionage personnel around the Western Hemisphere. The lady is kidnapped and Fox is targeted for elimination.
Mowat, Farley (1921-2004)
The Black Joke. Little, Brown, 1962. 218 pages
Run-running on the Newfoundland coast during Prohibition
Moxon, Lloyd M.
Before the Wind. Doubleday, 1978. 191 pages
Novel, told in first person, of Lt. John St. John's passage from newly-made Royal Navy lieutenant to post captain during the Napoleonic Wars. The good lieutenant joins a 64 commanded by a rabidly Methodist captain. After falling into the captains bad graces, he is sent on a suicidal cutting out mission, but succeeds, and is "rewarded" by being given command of a brig no one else wants. But our hero turns the ship into the scourge of the French coast. Purportedly first in a series, but it does not appear that follow-ups were written.
Mudgett, Helen Parker (1900-1962)
The Seas Stand Watch. A.A. Knopf, 1944. 391 pages
Portrays the great era of New England's trade and the shift to manufacturing.
Muir, Douglas
Midnight Admirals. Berkley, 1989. 343 pages
The supercarrier USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN carries fighter planes, nukes and a demented psycopath on a trail of revenge. A Tom Clancy type techno-thriller.
Muir, Margaret (M. C. Muir)
Sea Dust. Robert Hale, 2005. 223 pages
Set in 1856. After the death of her child, Emma's life is in ruins. In order to survive she must escape from her abusive husband and bury the guilt from her past. And then a chance encounter with a French seaman on the windswept Whitby cliff top provides the very opportunity. She can sail to Australia, but to do so she must stowaway on the Morning Star and risk being put ashore by the Captain if she is discovered. Following a vicious attack by one of the crew, Emma is nursed back to health by Charles Witton. As the turbulent sea around them mirrors Emma's emotional conflicts, the ship reaches Cape Town Bay - where disaster lies in wait.
Under Admiralty Orders - The Oliver Quintrell Series:
Floating Gold. Robert Hale, 2010. 227 pages
In March 1802, the Treaty of Amiens brings an uneasy peace to Europe. While the fighting ships of the Royal Navy languish in ordinary and sailors litter the alleys and alehouses of Portsmouth, frustrated officers barrage the Admiralty for a commission.
The Tainted Prize. Grindelwald, 2012. 234 pages
The year is 1803 and aboard HM Frigate, Perpetual, Captain Quintrell heads south to the Southern Ocean. His orders are to find a missing ship even if it means sailing all the way to Peru. But in order to complete his mission, he must face the challenges of the Horn, an unnerving discovery, French privateers, political intrigue and even deception and unrest amongst his own crew.
Admiralty Orders. Grindelwald, 2013. 215 pages
Book 3 in the Oliver Quintrell Series, sees Captain Quintrell facing life-threatening events over which he has no control. Ordered to sail to Gibraltar in the late summer of 1804, his ship soon becomes hemmed in, not by Spanish gunboats or French ships of the line, but by the Quarantine Regulations which close the port around him. Unable to halt the loss of life from a raging epidemic, he strives to do his part to help save the Colony when it is at its most vulnerable.
The Unfortunate Isles. Grindelwald, 2014. 222 pages
A sheltered cove in the idyllic Western Islands offers an ideal location to careen His Majesty's frigate, Perpetual. But what Captain Quintrell discovers on the beach, and in a nearby village, is shocking. Despite his orders, he promises he will not rest until he has brought the piratical scoundrel responsible for these barbaric acts to justice.
The Seventy-Four. Grindelwald, 2016. 298 pages
Captain Quintrell receives orders to return to England. He is to sail in company with a 74-gun third rate ship-of-the-line. Since leaving Rio, however, undercurrents of unrest have been simmering aboard the third rate. Treachery and insurrection, murder and mutiny must be put down and those responsible brought to account.
Nelson's Wake. self published, 2020. 245 pages
On 21 October, 1805, the British fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson defeats the ships of the French and Spanish navies at the Battle of Trafalgar. But at an enormous cost – the death of Horatio Nelson. After witnessing HMS Victory limp back to Portsmouth, Captain Oliver Quintrell joins other officers and men mourning the loss of Britain’s greatest seaman. But the ramifications of the battle are far reaching leaving many post captains without a commission. Surprised by his good fortune, Captain Quintrell is granted a command, a 50-gun ship anchored in Cork Harbour. Within days he departs Ireland and heads south but is without the support of his regular crew. Confronted with an abandoned ship, a rogue officer and a violent storm, Oliver Quintrell faces challenges he could never expect..
Muller, Charles G. [Geoffrey] (1897-1987)
Hero of Champlain. John Day, 1961. 192 pages
Biographical novel about Thomas Macdonough, victor of the Battle of Lake Champlain
Mundy, Talbot [pseud. William Lancaster Gribbon] (1879-1940)
Tros Series:
Tros of Samothrace. D. Appleton-Century, 1934. 949 pages
Fix-up of 7 novellas published in "Adventure" between 1925-6. The courageous adventures of the title character (a Greek from Samothrace) as he helps pre-Roman Britons fight the invading forces of Julius Caesar. Over the course of the novel, Tros travels from Britain to Spain, and finally the city of Rome itself.
Queen Cleopatra. Bobbs-Merrill, 1929. 426 pages
Most of the book is told from the perspective of Cleopatra who enlists Tros in her campaign to first ascend to the throne of Egypt and then to defend Egypt from Rome.
Purple Pirate. D. Appleton-Century, 1935. 375 pages
The continuing adventures of Tros of Samathrace who battles intrigue in Cleopatra's court while he woos her sister.
Muñoz, Charles C. (1926-2018)
Stowaway. Random House, 1957. 240 pages
Allegorical novel about the effect a stowaway has upon the members of a tramp steamer crew.
Munro, Neil [pseud. Hugh Foulis] (1864-1930)
Para Handy, and other Tales. W. Blackwood, 1937. 690 pages
Stories about the most decrepit tramp steam sailing out of Glasgow, the VITAL SPARK, usually commanded by "Para Handy" (Peter Shandy). Funny.
Erchie ; &, Jimmy Swan : with fifty-nine previously uncollected stories. Birlinn, 1993. 532 pages
Some of these should be nautical.
Murchie, Guy Jr. (1907-1997)
Mutiny of the Bounty and Other Sea Stories. Spencer, 1937. 309 pages
Murchie wrote his account of the Bounty mutiny for the Chicago Tribune in the 1930s, it's been reprinted here, along with 5 stories and short novels by other writers: How old Wiggins wore ship / R.T. Coffin -- Lost in the fog / Noah Brooks -- " ... Mas has come" / Leonard Kip -- The haunted ships / Allan Cunningham -- Idylls of the sea / F.T. Bullen
Myers, John Myers (1906-1988)
The Wild Yazoo. Dutton, 1947. 463 pages
North Mississippi in the early 19th century
Myers, Henry
The Utmost Island. Crown, 1951. 216 pages
Novel about Lief Ericcson's voyage to the new world.