Nautical Fiction Index

Howard, Edward (1793?-1841)

Rattlin, the Reefer. Richard Bentley, 1836. 3 volumes

Picaresque depiction of school and naval life in Napoleonic times. Mainly autobiographical, much in the style of Marryat, who edited it.

The Old Commodore. Richard Bentley, 1837. 3 volumes

Tells the tale of Commodore Sir Octavius Bacuissart, Royal Navy and his adventures ashore and afloat during the Napoleonic Wars.

Outward Bound; or, a Merchant's Adventures. Henry Colburn, 1838. 3 volumes

Another picaresque account, with scenes, some delightful, some horrific, set in the West Indies.

 

 

 

Howard, Elizaberth Jane (1923-2014) and Robert Aickman (1914-1981)

We are for the Dark: Six Ghost Stories. J. Cape, 1951. 285 pages

First story, "Three Miles Up", is set in the canals of England.

 

 

 

 

 

Howard, John Hamilton

In the Shadow of the Pines: A Tale of Tidewater Virginia. Eaton & Mains, 1906. 249 pages

Civil War story set in the Great Dismal Swamp

 

 

 

 

 

Howard, Robert E. (1906-1936)

Black Vulmea's Vengeance & Other Tales of Pirates. Donald M. Grant, 1976. 224 pages

Contents: Swords of the red brotherhood -- Black Vulmea's vengeance -- The isle of pirates' doom.

 

 

 

 

 

Howard, Warren [pseud. James Noble Gifford] (1900-1970)

The Boat. Arcadia, 1941. 256 pages

Five sided love story featuring a boat being build near the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

 

 

 

 

 

Howe, Michael [pseud. Schaill, William S. [q.v.]] (1944- )

Trident Force series:

1. 

   Trident Force. Berkley, 2008. 264 pages

   The Trident Force must identify and stop a crazed and determined terrorist out to destroy a cruise ship in the Antarctic and cause the hideous death of all aboard while the ship battles ice, bitter cold, monstrous waves and slashing, hurricane-force winds.

 

 

 

2. 

   Sea Hawk. Berkley, 2009. 266 pages

   A brilliant PLO terrorist launches a campaign of death and destruction that promises to cripple the free world’s maritime trade, then decides to defect. The Trident Force is tasked with both getting the defector out before others can kill him and preventing his former associates from bringing the campaign to its bloody conclusion.

 

 

 

3. 

   Threat Level. Berkley, 2010. 267 pages

   The Trident Force is dispatched to suppress the Somali pirates who are attacking ships, killing Americans and crippling ocean shipping in the Indian Ocean. Just when they are up to their necks in pirates the force finds it must also prevent a Saudi ship filled with nuclear weapons from reaching port.

 

 

 

 

Hoyt, Edwin Palmer (1923-2005)

Stephen Decatur series:

1. 

   Hellfire In Tripoli. Pinnacle, 1974. 151 pages

   Stephen Decatur burns the captured American frigate PHILADELPHIA in Tripoli Harbor.

 

 

 

 

2. 

   Against Cold Steel. Pinnacle, 1974. 185 pages

   Stephen Decatur launches a gunboat attack against Tripoli in 1804.

 

 

 

 

3. 

   Decatur's Revenge. Pinnacle, 1975. 180 pages

   The end of the war against the Barbary states.

 

 

 

 

The Terrible Voyage. Pinnacle, 1976. 154 pages

On November 20, 1820, the Essex, a Nantucket whaling ship of 105 feet, 238 tons, was rammed by a crazed sperm whale and sunk in the Pacific. Her crew of twenty barely had time to abandon ship in three small whaling boats. Thousands of miles from land, without charts, their chances were slim, yet they rowed and fought the seas. Little did they know that it would be months before any of them reached land, and that the others would starve to death, go mad, or commit suicide. Only a handful survived . . . after being reduced to eating human flesh.

 

 

 

Hoyt, Richard (1941- )

Fish Story : a John Denson mystery. Viking, 1985. 187 pages

John Dennison, Seattle private eye teams up with his darts-throwing Cowlitz Indian buddy, Willie Prettybird, to investigate a Cowlitz claim to Native American salmon fishing rights. A judge is murdered and dismembered parts show up in Seattle's Pioneer Square.

 

 

 

Siege. TOR, 1987. 309 pages

Group of terrorists infiltrate Gibraltar and take 20,000 British subjects hostage. The CIA comes to the rescue.

 

 

 

 

 

Hubbard, Lucien (1888-1971)

Rivers to the Sea : an American story. Simon & Schuster, 1942. 313 pages

Steamboating adventures along the Mississippi - from Pittsburg to New Orleans - in 1811

 

 

 

 

 

Huddleston, Sisley (1883-1952)

The Captain's Table: a Transatlantic Log. Lippincott, 1932. 315 pages

Novel about intertwined lives during a transatlantic ocean liner voyage from New York to Southhampton and Cherbourg.

 

 

 

 

 

Hudson, Alec [pseud. Wilfred Jay "Jasper" Holmes] (1900-1986)

Battle Stations! Macmillan, 1939. 71 pages

 

 

 

 

Enemy Sighted. Macmillan, 1941. 61 pages

 

 

 

 

Rendezvous. Macmillan, 1942. 94 pages

Contents: Rendezvous -- Up periscope! -- North of Tershelling.

 

 

 

Up Periscope! and Other Stories. Naval Institute Press, 1992. 248 pages

Combined edition of the author's stories.

 

 

 

 

 

Hughes, Carol (1961- )

Jack Black & the Ship of Thieves. Random House, 1997. 231 pages

Having fallen from his father's airship, Jack blunders into a feud between a pirate ship and a deadly ocean-going war machine and encounters danger, intrigue, and treachery.

 

 

 

 

Hughes, John Scott (1893-1960)

Uncle Sam's Schooner. Methuen, 1945. 169 pages

A novel about the schooner yacht America.

 

 

 

 

Hughes, Michael (1940- )

The Gironde Incident. W. H. Allen, 1983. 251 pages

An U-570 is captured by the British, and used to infiltrate a false crew in Bordeaux with the mission of kidnaping a member of Dönitz´s staff.

 

 

 

 

 

Hughes, Richard A. (1900-1976)

In Hazard, a sea story. Chatto & Windus, 1938. 273 pages

Relates the story of a ship, the ARCHIMEDES, caught in a hurricane in the West Indies. The story is a simple one and it is very powerfully written. Closely based on the 1932 ordeal of SS PHEMIUS, which spent 5 days in a Caribbean hurricane.

 

 

 

A High Wind in Jamaica, or, The Innocent Voyage. Chatto & Windus, 1929. 283 pages

19th century pirates inadvertently kidnap children; filmed in 1965.

 

 

 

 

 

Hughes, Terry (1933- )

Queen's Mate. Hodder and Stoughton, 1982. 348 pages

U.S. title: The Day They Stole the Queen Mary. Aboard the "Queen Mary," carrying Winston Churchill to a meeting with Roosevelt and one thousand Nazi prisoners bound for American camps, a fanatic German agent executes a plan to kidnap Churchill and change the course of the war.

 

 

 

 

Hugo, Victor (1802-1885)

Les Travailleurs de la mer. Librairie Internationale, 1866. 3 volumes

Sailing and steaming around France, Spain and England, with smuggling, storms and octopus-monsters mixed in. The first unabridged English translation of The Toilers of the Sea was published in 2012

Quatrevingt-treize. Michel Lévy frères, 1874. 3 volumes

A chapter about what a loose cannon on deck can do justifies this book as nautical. English translation Ninety-Three

 

 

 

Hulme, Kathryn Cavarly (1900-1981)

Annie's Captain. Little, Brown, 1961. 330 pages

Biographical novel about the author's great, great grandfather, a clipper ship captain, and his bride Annie.

 

 

 

 

 

Humes, Harold L. (1926-1992)

Men Die. Random House, 1959. 183 pages

Just before World War II, Lieutenant Everett Sulgrave is stationed at a Navy ammunitions base in the Caribbean, along with Commander Hake, an anguished, intimidating leader nicknamed "Admiral God," and Hake's right-hand man, the enigmatic Lieutenant Dolfus. Dolfus has dark premonitions that soon come true when a massive explosion destroys the island. Sulgrave and five black enlistees are the only survivors. Now Sulgrave must contend with the aftermath of the tragedy and the beginning of his volatile affair with Hake's widow

 

 

 

 

 

 

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