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Nautical Fiction Index

Authors Hil - Hou

Hill, Ernestine (Hemmings), (1899-1972)

My Love Must Wait : the story of Matthew Flinders. Angus and Robertson, 1941. 466 pages

Fictionalized biography of Matthew Flinders, a Royal Navy officer who conducted the first circumnavigation of the Australian coast.

 

 

 

 

Hill, Porter (Pseud.)

Adam Horne series:

  1. The Bombay Marines. Souvenir, 1985. 220 pages

    Adam Horne a captain in the Bombay Marine, the British East India Company's private navy sent by HEIC to kidnap the former commander of French forces in India, General Lailly, from the custody of the British Army to the custody of the HEIC. Set in 1761.

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  3. The War Chest. Souvenir, 1986. 220 pages

    Adam Horne is dispatched to seas around Madagascar to capture a war chest being sent from France to pay French troops in Mauritius. Set in 1761.

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  5. China Flyer. Souvenir, 1987. 203 pages

    Horne is sent to China to recover the CHINA FLYER, an HEIC ship stolen by a renagade HEIC purchasing agent -- who also helped himself to the gold reserves at Madras. Set in 1762.

 

 

 

 

 

Hill, Robert A.

First mate of the Henry Glass. Vantage Press, 1959. 190 pages

Newly licensed Chief Mate Robert Hall’s first assignment is aboard the just-commissioned Liberty Ship HENRY GLASS, sailing out of San Pedro early on during the War. The GLASS is described as an armed merchant ship, complete with an S.O.B. of a skipper, unhappy crewmen and contingents of Navy gunners and U.S. Marines clearly unhappy to have to associate with merchant mariners.

 

 

 

Hill, Weldon [pseud. William Ralph Scott] (1920-1992)

Onionhead. D. McKay, 1957. 378 pages

A fictionalization of the author's WW II experiences in the US Coast Guard. Released as a motion picture in 1958.

 

 

 

 

 

Hillman, Ralf Ridgway (1868-1940)

The House-boat Enigma. Dorrance, 1937. 194 pages

Mystery on a pair of houseboats moored in Weller Pond, Middle Sarnac Lake, in the Adirondacks.

 

 

 

 

Hilton, Joseph

Ship of the Damned. Magnum, 1972. 174 pages

Aboard the cruise ship Santa Lucia, out of Brazil for the Windward Islands with 600 passengers including five Americans and Colonel De Sota, a savage revolutionary who hijacks the ship.

 

 

 

 

Hine, Al

Juggernaut. Bantam, 1974. 204 pages

Nasty guy plants bombs on world's greatest luxury liner, threatens to blow it up with 1,200 passengers aboard if he isn't paid ransom. Novelization of a movie with Richard Harris and Omar Sharif.

 

 

 

 

Hirschhorn, Richard

Target Mayflower. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. 324 pages

Hitler's last desperate gamble: send sub pack to Maine, where they will liberate a POW camp filled with Afrika Korps troops, invade the US, and threaten Boston with V-2 rockets.

 

 

 

 

Hirt, Douglas

Riverboat Series:

  1. Riverboat. Jove, 1995. 295 pages

    TEMPEST QUEEN travels from Napoleon to Natchez in the spring of 1859 with a haunted captain, a captured runaway slave, a pack of gamblers determined to steal the boat from its captain, and a gambler who is determined to stop them. A fun read.

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  3. Mississippi Pirates. Jove, 1995. 295 pages

    The TEMPEST QUEEN is chartered to take Army stores and payroll from St. Louis to Leavenworth. A Missouri River pirate learns of the cargo, and enlists every desperado along the river to hijack the boat. Another fun read. Hirt name drops every character on the Missouri River at that time.

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  5. Assasination. Jove, 1995. 298 pages

    The TEMPEST QUEEN stops at Baton Rouge and picks up Sen. Stephen Douglas as he goes on a presidential campaign swing through the South -- and an assassin who wants to kill Douglas so that a Civil War will erupt.

 

 

 

 

Hiscock, Robin (1929- )

The Last Run South. Longmans, Green, 1956. 217 pages

Adventures on board and ashore during a Canadian seaman's final voyage to South America

 

 

 

 

 

Hobart, Alice Tisdale (1882-1967)

Pidgin Cargo. Century, 1929. 315 pages

Adventures along the Yangtze River. Reprinted as River Supreme

 

 

 

 

 

Hobb, Robin [pseud. of Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden] (1952- )

The Liveship Traders fantasy series:

The Live Ships are ships constructed from "wizard wood", a rare wood with magic properties. The result is that the ships are alive, and self aware.


  1. Ship of Magic. Voyager, 1998. 667 pages
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  3. The Mad Ship. Voyager, 1999. 400 pages
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  5. Ship of Destiny. Voyager, 2000. 581 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hocking, Charles

Tommy Trevannion: Sea Cadet. Stanmore, 1953. 263 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hodgson, William Hope (1875-1918)

The Boats of the GLEN CARRIG: being an account of their adventures in the strange places of the Earth, after the foundering of the good ship Glen Carrig through striking upon a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the southward, as told by John Winterstraw, gent., to his son James Winterstraw, in the year 1757, and by him committed very properly and legibly to manuscript. Chapman and Hall, 1907. 312 pages

"An Edwardian voyage of mystery and imagination as bizarre as Conan Doyle's Lost World, as sinister and darkly shadowed as the most fevered and haunting creations of Edgar Allan Poe" So there you go! Hodgson himself was quite a sailor and was killed defending his post in the Great War.


 

Captain Gault: Being the Exceedingly Private Log of a Sea-Captain. Eveleigh Nash, 1917. 303 pages

Stories from earlier magazine publication, mostly about how the roguish Captain Gault outwits customs agents to smuggle diamonds, pearls, saccharine, guns, whatever.


 

 

 

Deep Waters. Arkham House, 1967. 300 pages

Short stories: The Sea Horses; The Derelict (A very creepy story of a ship encountering an ancient derelict that seems to be... alive?); The Thing in the Weeds; From the Tideless Sea; The Island of the Ud; The Voice in the Night; The Adventure of the Headland; The Mystery of the Derelict; The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder; The Stone Ship; The Crew of the LANCING; The habitants of Middle Islet; The Call in the Dawn.

 

 

 

Hogeboom, Amy (editor) (1879-1970)

Tales from the High Seas. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1948. 302 pages

Initiation / Joseph Conrad -- The Capture of young Caesar / Henry Gilbert -- Kublia Khan attacks by sea / Marco Polo -- Don Cristobal Colon / J. Leslie Mitchell -- Magellan's man / Charles J. Finger -- Blackbeard / Howard Pyle -- Jim Hawkins strikes the Jolly Roger / Robert Louis Stevenson -- Sea Rovers for the Queen / A.E. Hogeboom -- The Bon Homme Richard / Herman Melville -- Fletcher Christian / Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall -- Uncomfortably near the last / Frank T. Bullen -- The Long search / Herman Melville -- Sea superstition / John Masefield -- Port of many ships / John Masefield -- The Flying Bo'sun and the Hindoo / Arthur Mason -- The Heathen / Jack London -- Trafalgar / Robert Southey -- Hurricane Reef / Howard Pease -- Stephen Decatur / Charles L. Lewis -- Heading home around Cape Horn / Richard H. Dana -- The Darling of the Seas: The Clipper Ship / Rupert Holland -- Shackleton's boat voyage / Captain Victor Slocum -- Amundesen and the Northwest Passage / T.C. Bridges and H. Hessel Tiltman -- On Ice patrol / Kensil Bell -- The Unsinkable ship / Karl Baarslag -- There go the ships / Robert Carse -- Privilege / Brendan Gill -- The Ship: In support of destroyers / C.S. Forester.

 

Holland, Cecelia (1943- )

The Sea Beggars. Knopf, 1982. 305 pages

Fictionalized account of a family during the Dutch revolt against Spain in the 16th Century. Significant action at sea, or in port -- including a description of the relief of Leyden, when the Dutch flooded the polders around the besieged city to bring supplies in by ship.

 

 

 

 

Holland, Cyril Gerard (1881-1952)

Perilous Seas. T. Nelson & Sons, 1931. 306 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holland, Rupert Sargent (1878-1952)

Drake's Lad. Century, 1929. 213 pages

Exploits of a boy who joined Drake for his circumnavigation aboard the Golden Hind.

 

 

 

 

Yankee Ships in Pirate Waters. Garden City, 1931. 317 pages

Early 19th century trading voyages

 

 

 

 

The Boy Who Lived on London Bridge. Macrae-Smith, 1938. 321 pages

Another Spanish Armada yarn.

 

 

 

 

 

Hollick, Helen

Sea Witch series

  1. Sea Witch : being the first voyage of Cpt. Jesamiah Acorne & his ship, Sea Witch. Discovered Authors, 2006. 411 pages

    Escaping the bullying of his elder brother, from the age of fifteen Jesamiah Acorne has been a pirate, with only two loves - his ship and his freedom. But his life is to change when he and his crew unsuccessfully attack a merchant ship off the coast of South Africa. He is to meet Tiola Oldstagh, an insignificant girl or so he thinks - until she rescues him from a vicious attack, and almost certain death, by pirate hunters. And then he discovers what she really is; a healer and a midwife - and a white witch.

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  3. Pirate Code. Discovered Authors, 2007. 313 pages

    Jesamiah Acorne, Captain of the Sea Witch, has received a pardon for his crimes of piracy; but is still unable to free his love Tiola Oldstagh from her unhappy marriage to Stefan van Overstratten. As a white witch Tiola has the means of saving herself but refuses to use her Craft, so Jesamiah must think of a brave solution. War is again looming between England and Spain. The Admiralty in London is desperate for intelligence reports but their spy has failed to return from the Spanish-held territory of Hispaniola.

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  5. Bring it Close. Discovered Authors, 2009. 436 pages

    Jesamiah Acorne, Captain of the Sea Witch, has accepted a government granted amnesty against his misdeeds of piracy, but old enemies do not forget the past. In particular Edward Teach - better known as Blackbeard - has a bone to pick with Acorne. Following an indiscretion with an old flame, Jesamiah finds his fiancée, the midwife and white witch, Tiola Oldstagh, has gone to North Carolina to help with an imminent and difficult birth; the problem, that is where Blackbeard now resides.

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  7. Ripples in the Sand. SilverWood Books, 2012. 310 pages

    Approaching England's North Devon Coast Captain Jesamiah Acorne is worried. A Royal Navy frigate is trailing in his wake and Sea Witch has a hidden cache of brandy and indigo aboard. His instinct is to hoist full sail and flee, but he cannot attract attention, for his wife, Tiola, is ill and getting worse. She says the sea is affecting her, but Jesamiah has never seen seasickness like this before - is it something worse; something to do with her being a white witch perhaps?

 

 

 

Holling, Holling Clancy (1900- 1973)

Paddle-to-the-Sea. Houghton Mifflin, 1941. 63 pages

This childrens' book Follows the journey of a toy canoe carved by a Native American boy, launched at Lake Nipigon, Canada, travelling through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, with a series of adventures on the way, each described in a one page text with illustrations. Great amounts of geography, natural history, historical detail are included. The Holling style is very characteristic: sort of a 40's and 50's David Macauley.


 

 

Seabird. Houghton Mifflin, 1948. 58 pages

Juvenile book about a whaling ship's boy who carved a gull of walrus ivory in 1832, and their adventures into the Twentieth Century as he grows up to become a clipper captain, his son becomes a reluctant convert to steam, his grandson becomes a ship designer, and his great-grandson an airplane pilot. Many illustrations by the author. Realistic look at whaling.


 

 

Pagoo. Houghton Mifflin, 1957. 86 pages

The story of a hermit crab, delightfully told with detailed full color plates facing the text pages. On the text page margins are pen and ink drawings illustrating the many aspects of the tale.

 

 

 

 

Holt, Tom (1961- )

Flying Dutch. Macdonald, 1991. 252 pages

An utterly bizarre and entertaining yarn about how Cornelius Vanderdecker became immortal and cursed, and how the saga ends. In this madcap telling of the Flying Dutchman's tale, Van Derdecker and his besotted crew do come ashore once every 7 years. As their adventures progress to modern times, "Dutch" meets a woman who is destined to keep him ashore, and encounters the man who started the entire immortality caper in 1585. It's a page turner.

 

 

 

Homer

The Odyssey. Demetrius Damilas, 1488-9. (Demetrius Chalcondyles, ed.) 440 pages

Odysseus and his crew have many adventures on the wine-dark sea on their way back from the Trojan Wars.

 

 

 

 

 

Homewood, Harry (1914-1984)

Final Harbor. McGraw-Hill, 1980. 372 pages

Submarine USS MAKO in action against the Japanese in WW II.


 

 

 

Silent Sea. McGraw-Hill, 1981. 354 pages

Submarine USS EELFISH in action against the Japanese in WW II -- a sequel to Final Harbor, with some of the same characters.


 

 

 

Torpedo. McGraw-Hill, 1982. 352 pages

Cold War confrontation between US and Soviet nuclear submarines after Soviets sink US Sub. Includes the same characters as Final Harbor and Silent Sea.


 

 

 

O God of Battles. W. Morrow, 1983. 359 pages

WW II Pacific epic, on, above, and below the sea.

 

 

 

 

 

Hoover, Thomas (1941- )

The Moghul. Doubleday, 1983. 473 pages

Captain Brian Hawksworth sails to India as an emissary of King James to the Great Moghul Jahangir and gets into battles with the Portuguese.


 

 

 

Caribbee. Doubleday, 1985. 396 pages

Barbados buccaneers battle British for independence.

 

 

 

 

 

Hope, Laura Lee [pseud. for The Stratemeyer Syndicate]

Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on the Rolling Ocean. Grosset & Dunlap, 1925. 246 pages

Although Bunny Brown gets top billing in the title, little Sue is by no means a shadow character in this story and the girls will enjoy it as much as the boys. The Brown family embarks on a steamer passage to the West Indies and along the way experience a temporary marooning on a tropical isle, the discovery of a wild man, the saving of a shipwrecked mariner (the wild man) and a general good time by all. For young readers.

 

 

 

Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844-1889)

"The Wreck of the Deutschland" in "Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins". Humphrey Milford, 1918. 124 pages

Poem about the wreck of a German packet steamer on the sands off the English coast, it's based on an actual wreck in the late Victorian era.

 

 

 

 

Hopkins, William John

The Clammer and the Submarine. Houghton Mifflin, 1917. 346 pages

The Clammer and his family duel with a German submarine off the U.S. East Coast.

 

 

 

 

 

Hoppe, Arthur Watterson (1925-2000)

Dreamboat. Doubleday, 1964. 255 pages

Comedy about a sailboat based in San Francisco.

 

 

 

 

 

Hopwood, Ronald Arthur (1868-1949)

The Old Way, And Other Poems. J. Murray, 1916. 62 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horan, James D.

Seek Out and Destroy. Crown, 1958. 302 pages

Aboard the Confederate commerce raider LEE in the dying days of the Civil War, as it wreaks havoc on the Yankee merchant fleet -- even after the war ends. Novel closely based on the exploits of the SHENANDOAH.

 

 

 

 

Horsley, David

Vinegar Johnnie. Brown, Watson, 1958. 157 pages

Johnny Bates is the WW II corvette HMS DESBOROUGH's first lieutenant, who takes over command from his sick captain. While on convoy protection duties as part of an escort group she faces atrocious weather, never far from the Focke-Wolfe Condors and the U-boats, trying to pick up as many survivors from stricken ships as possible. The author seems to dwell on just seeing bits of bodies after explosions and suffering in general, which is probably what it was like! "Two swooping seagulls led the watchers to believe that human remains may....." Bates' step brother is a Swordfish pilot on a carrier and after being shot down is rescued by a U-boat but is reunited, under peculiar circumstances, with his brother - this tends to destroy the credibility of what started out as a good yarn.

 

 

Horst, Karl

Sink the 'Ark Royal'. Corgi, 1979. 205 pages


 

 

 

 

 

Caribbean Pirate. Corgi, 1980. 205 pages


 

 

 

 

 

Arctic Mutiny. Corgi, 1981. 174 pages

 

 

 

 

 

Hough, Henry Beetle (1896-1985)

Long Anchorage, a New Bedford Story. D. Appleton-Century, 1947. 300 pages

Novel about the whaling days of New Bedford.

 

 

 

 

The Port. Atheneum, 1963. 241 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hough, Richard Alexander (1922-1999)

Archy Buller - Rod McLewin series

  1. Buller's Guns. Morrow, 1981. 297 pages

    Archy Buller, a rich officer, and Rod Maclewin, a poor enlisted man, serve in the Royal Navy in the 1880s-1890s, on the quarterdeck and fo'csle respectively, but get bound into firm friendship through action, despite the differences in class.

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  3. Buller's Dreadnought. Morrow, 1982. 251 pages

    Early 20th century RN, including battle of Tsushima (between the Russian Baltic Fleet and the Japanese, where Buller and McLewin were observers.

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  5. Buller's Victory. Morrow, 1984. 215 pages

    Archy Buller and his son fight WW I, including Cradock's defeat off Chile, von Spee's defeat at the Falklands and the battle of Jutland.


 

 

 

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