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Nautical Fiction Index

Authors Bul - By

Bullen, Frank Thomas (1857-1915)

The Cruise of the Cachalot: Round the World After Sperm Whales. Grosset & Dunlap, 1897. 397 pages

Bullen drew on his youthful experiences as a whaler for this novel about a cruise to the South Pacific whaling grounds.


 

 

 

The Log of a Sea-waif : being recollections of the first four years of my sea life. Smith, Elder & Co, 1899. 349 pages


 

 

 

 

Deep Sea Plunderings: a collection of stories of the sea. Smith, Elder & Co, 1901. 350 pages

Stories of the sea - Some whaling.


 

 

 

A Sack of Shakings . McClure, Phillips & Co., 1901. 388 pages

Shakings are odds and ends of rope and canvas accumulated during a voyage. They were formerly the perquisites of the chief mate. Thus, odds and ends of sea stories.


 

 

 

A Whaleman's wife. D. Appleton, 1902. 372 pages


 

 

 

 

A Bounty Boy: Being Some Adventures of a Christian Barbarian on an Unpremeditated Trip Round the World. Marshall, 1907. 361 pages

South Pacific whaling adventure for young readers.


 

 

 

Young Nemesis. J. Nisbet, 1908. 372 pages

"A Pirate hunter."



 

 

 

Burke, James Lee (1936- )

Dixie City Jam. Hyperion, 1994. 367 pages

Off the coast of New Iberia, deputy sheriff Dave Robicheaux finds a wrecked U-boat. It has sufficient positive buoyancy to drift around. The discovery starts off a chain of events when various vested interests attempt to force Robicheaux into revealing its whereabouts.



 

 

 

Burland, Brian (1931-2010)

A Fall from Aloft. Barrie & Rockliff, 1968. 195 pages

An account of a youngster's crossing from Hamilton, Bermuda, to England in 1942 when U-Boats contributed, to the precariousness of any passage. The story is told through the eyes--often looking backwards to the security of his home--of young James who was sent away because of certain juvenile misdemeanors. He has spasms of dreadful homesickness and seasickness.



 

 

 

Burnage, Roger

The Merriman Chronicles:.

  1. A Certain Threat. Burnage, 2012. 204 pages

    With French Revolutionary agents travelling freely but secretly between Ireland and England and war with France inevitable, the English government of Mr Pitt is desperately anxious to uncover any plots between Irish rebels and the French. Lieutenant James Merriman with his ship, the sloop Aphrodite, is ordered to the Irish Sea to assist the principal Treasury agent Mr. Grahame in this work. Merriman is plunged headlong into the world of espionage and when Grahame is seriously wounded it falls to Merriman to carry on the investigation.

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  3. Merriman and the French Invasion. Burnage, 2013. 231 pages

    Recalled home from the West Indies, Lieutenant James Merriman is promoted to the rank of Post Captain and given command of the frigate Lord Stevenage. It is known that the French are amassing an army and a fleet to invade Ireland and join with Irish rebels. If it succeeds then England will be ringed by enemy countries under the control of Napoleon Bonaparte, and only the navy stands between France and England.

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  5. The Threat in the East. Burnage, 2014. 168 pages

    The year is 1798 and it is known that Napoleon is putting a fleet and army together to attack Egypt, from where he might be able to threaten and even attack India to join with Tipu Sahib the ruler of Mysore, a known ally of the French. A British fleet under Admiral Nelson is hoping to intercept him but there is no word of their progress. Merriman has been ordered to take the Treasury Agent Mr Grahame to Bombay where their orders are to help The East India Company protect their shipping from pirates and also to find out how far Tipu's naval building has progressed.

 

 

 



Burns, Walter Noble (1872-1932)

A Year with a Whaler. Outing Pub. Co., 1913. 250 pages

Author shipped as a greenhorn on an arctic whaling ship, and relates his adventures in the Bering and Chukchi seas, with notes on the processing of whale aboard ship. The ship was the 'Alexander' out of San Francisco.



 

 

 

Burton, Hester

Castors away! World Pub. Co., 1962. 254 pages

Juvenile fiction about the battle of Trafalgar.



 

 

 

Burton, Sir Richard Francis (1821-1890)

The book of The Thousand Nights and a Night: A plain and literal translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments; made and annotated by Richard F. Burton. Burton Club, 1885. 8 volumes

Sinbad the Sailor's Adventures, other translations and many abridgements of Burton's and others exist.



 

 

 

Bushnell, O. A. (Oswald Andrew) "Ozzy" (1913-2002)

The Return of Lono: a novel of Captain Cook's last voyage. Little, Brown, 1956. 290 pages

Reconstructs the momentous visit to Hawaii by Captain Cook. Told from the point of view of midshipman Forrest of the RESOLUTION. Hawaiian history and customs are accurately portrayed.



 

 

 

Butler, David

Lusitania. Random House, 1981. 578 pages

Epic novel about the doomed liner and the people involved with her.



 

 

 

 

Butler, Richard

The Men that God Forgot. Hutchinson, 1975. 255 pages

Demon's Land they called it - a bastardisation of Van Diemen's Land - a place where men rotted or starved or were flogged to death. The maximum security hard-labour camp at Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour was the end of the line for prisoners - a hell on earth for convicts and gaolers alike - and when in 1833, it was decided to close the settlement, ten desperate and ruthless men seized the ship that was to transport them, and made their final bid for freedom.



 

 

Butterworth, W. E. [pseud. W. E. B. Griffin] (1929-2019)

Stop and search : a novel of small boat warfare off Vietnam. Little, Brown, 1969. 152 pages

Instead of the smooth future he had envisioned Eddie finds himself a seaman second class policing dirty rivers in Vietnam.



 

 

 

Byrne, Beverly

The Griffin Saga series.

Roger Griffin, banished from the court of Charles II, builds trading empire.


  1. The Outcast. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1981. 510 pages
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  3. The Adventurer. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1982. 479 pages


 

 

 

 

 

Bywater, Hector C. (1884–1940)

The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese Campaign of 1931-33. Constable, 1925. 317 pages

A British naval corespondent, author of many books on naval affairs and a friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bywater caused a sensation with the publication of this novel. The story's feasibility and likelihood were rubbished by Bywater's contemporaries and the navies of America and Great Britain alike. After all it was a bit far-fetched! The Japanese striking a surprise blow on the American Pacific Fleet, attacking the Philippines, someone from the Philippines taking command of the American counter-attack and island hopping towards the Japanese mainland, a naval battle in mid-ocean the turning point of the war, American industrial power eventually redressing the naval balance.




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