London, Jack (1876-1916)
The Cruise of the Dazzler. Century, 1902. 250 pages
For young readers. 15 yr. old boy runs away and inadvertently joins crew of a "Bay Pirate" sloop. Simplistic plot and characters, but great descriptions of small boat sailing on and just outside of San Francisco Bay.
The Sea-Wolf. Macmillan, 1904. 366 pages
Effite college boy vs. Nietchzian superman.
Tales of the Fish Patrol. Macmillan, 1905. 243 pages
Oyster pirates, illegal fishing and other shenanigans on SF bay, lots of small boat sailing, much of it in "Columbia River salmon boats."
A Son of the Sun. Grosset & Dunlap, 1912. 333 pages
The adventures of Captain David Grief in the Solomons Islands.
The Mutiny of the Elsinore. Macmillan, 1914. 392 pages
Passion and mutiny aboard a windjammer rounding the Horn with a hard-bitten male crew and one woman passenger.
Jerry of the Islands. Macmillan, 1917. 337 pages
Dog story based on "real adventures" in the Solomon Islands
Michael, Brother of Jerry. Macmillan, 1917. 344 pages
Compainion work about the dog that stayed on the Solomons
South Sea Tales. Macmillan, 1911. 321 pages
The House of Mapuhi, The Whale Tooth, Muki, "Yah! Yah! Yah!", The Heathen, The Terrible Solomons, The Inevitable White Man, The Seed of McCoy
Longstreet, Stephen (1907-2002)
Masts to Spear the Stars. Doubleday, 1967. 364 pages
China clipper tale.
Storm Watch. Putnam, 1979. 309 pages
A broken captain takes over command of a supertanker, gets involved in an international conspiracy and with a bunch of religious fanatics.
Loomis, Alfred Fullerton (1890-1968)
Walt Henley, Skipper. I. Washburn, 1929. 262 pages
Paradise Cove. Appleton-Century, 1933. 288 pages
The theme is the call of the sea, as evidenced in the Eden family, and the conflict aroused by the dislike of the sea on the part of the unpopular but omnipresent daughter-in-law.
Lord, Earle N.
The Last cruise of the Hermann Maru. [self published], 2000. 311 pages
In wartime South Pacific, the seemingly sole survivor of a Liberty Ship is drifting in a lifeboat. Flashbacks detail the author's personal experience of shipboard life and interactions of the vessel's crew.
Lorenz, Helmut
The Sunken Fleet. Little, Brown, 1930. 342 pages
Translation of Die versunkene Flotte (1926). The friendship between two naval commanders on opposite sides during the Great War
Lovejoy, William H
Ultra Deep. Zebra, 1992. 382 pages
A Soviet rocket with a nuclear payload sinks deep into the ocean, where it will melt down and poison the seas unless our hero with his robot submersibles can find and disable it in time.
Ocean Black. Kensington, 1995. 445 pages
18,000 feet below the surface of the pacific, billionaire industrialist Paul Deride has hit a motherlode of manganese. But the only way to retrieve the precious ore is through a series of strategically placed nuclear detonators that could trigger a massive earthquake along California’s San Andreas Fault. First published under his Hank Bostrum pseudonym.
Low, Charles Rathbone (1837-1918)
Tales of Old Ocean. Hodder and Stoughton, 1869. 302 pages
The Adventures of Joshua Hawsepipe, Master Mariner: A Tale of the Sea and Land. Routledge, 1869. 189 pages
Tales of Naval Adventure. Routledge, 1872. 313 pages
The Letter of Marque and Tales of the Sea and Land. Routledge, 1873. 1 volume
TThe Autobiography of a Man-o'-War's Bell: A Tale of the Sea. Routledge, 1875. 357 pages
Cyril Hamilton: His Adventures by Sea and Land. Routledge, 1885. 309 pages
Lowden, Desmond (1937- )
Bandersnatch. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. 264 pages
Ex-RN officer, unable to adjust to peacetime following heroic adventures in Med during WW II relives his glory days by buying and living aboard the MTB that he commanded in the war, which 20 years later is a clapped-out relic. Chased out of the Spanish port in which he was harbored by a Greek shipping tycoon, he gets revenge by hijacking the magnate aboard his yacht, and holding him and his party for ransom.
Cry Havoc. Macmillan, 1984. 256 pages
International yacht racing (Cowes & Admirals Cup) with a vivid reconstruction of the disastrous '79 Fastnet Race, make a fascinating background for this thriller.
Lowry, Malcolm (1909-1957)
Ultramarine. Jonathan Cape, 1933. 275 pages
Autobiographical novel about a young man aboard a steamer in the early 20th century and his struggle to gain acceptance from his crew mates.
Luard, Lawson [pseud. W. B. (William Blaine) Luard] (1897-1979)
Conquering Seas. Longmans, Green, 1935. 305 pages
On a North Sea fishing trawler, two friends are pitted against another ship's captain in a competition for the biggest haul.
Wild Goose Chase. Collins, 1937. 255 pages
The narrator attempts to have a yacht constructed by a Breton boat builder in Carantec. The first is lost on its maiden voyage, the second burned before launching, and the novel closes with the building of the third.
Northern Deeps. Collins, 1938. 288 pages
Nautical short stories
Lucas, Jeremy
The Longest Flight. J. Cape, 1982. 151 pages
Perhaps unique, about an arctic tern on its trans-ocean flight
Lüddecke, Werner Jörg (1911-1986)
Morituri. Fawcett, 1965. 192 pages
German blockade runner leaves Japan in 1943-44, with a cargo of valuable war material, a crew full of misfits that -- facing charges and execution in Germany -- want the ship captured, a British spy whose mission it is to keep the Germans from scuttling the ship, a fanatic Nazi who is convinced that the captain wants the ship to get captured -- and a humanistic captain who is determined to get back to Germany despite his crew, the British spy, and the "aid" of his Nazi first officer. En route they collect a beautiful German Jewish woman who aided a British liner to fight a German raider. Great fun. Turned into a movie starring Yul Brynner and Marlon Brando. Original German language edition is over 500 pages long. Revised edition: Blockadebrecher (1970).
Lunn, Jonathan [pseud. Daniel Hall]
Kit Killigrew RN series:
1847: Forty years after its abolition, the Transatlantic slave trade is more lucrative than ever, and only one man is ruthless enough to beat the slavers at their own game. Risking death, Lieutenant Kit Killigrew infiltrates the crew of a slave ship. From the smoke-filled clubs of London to the steamy jungles of the Guinea Coast, young Killigrew finds himself on a journey fraught with murder and betrayal.
1849: Reckless acts of bravery are not uncharacteristic of Lieutenant Kit Killigrew. So when he's instrumental in capturing the infamous Chinese pirate, Zhai Jimng-mu, en route to Hong Kong, and releasing his beautiful hostage, Peri Dadabhoy, no one is surprised. But, for Killigrew, the stakes grow impossibly high--love, professional integrity, and, ultimately, his life.
1850: South Pacific: The Tisiphone sails the south seas with Killigrew trying to drink himself to perdition to forget past events. During a stopover in Hobart Killigrew kills a man in self defence earning the emnity of his brother. The Tisiphone then sails for Norfolk Island and finds itself involved in an escape attempt by a group of "incorrigibles".
1852: Arctic Ocean: Killigrew has volunteered for Arctic duty on the Venturer, part of Sir Edward Belcher's expedition to find Sir John Franklin's missing ships and the North-West Passage. Venturer becomes separated from the rest of the squadron and her glory-hunting captain decides to press on alone, deeper into the icebound bays of the Arctic seas. When the ship is trapped, the captain's hold on sanity begins to slip.
1854: Viscount Bullivant has a peculiar notion of a family holiday-spectating at the Crimean War. But when the influential viscount and his family become prisoners of the Russian secret police, Killigrew, who has more important things to worry about, is ordered to rescue them. Soon they are being pursued by the Russian ship Atalanta; and in her dashing Captain Pechorin, Killigrew may finally have met his match.
When commander Kit Killigrew of the Royal Navy is framed for murder by his old foe, the Russian Colonel Nekrasoff, he must plunge into the murky depths of the Victorian underworld in a desperate attempt to escape the hangman' s noose. Before long, he is thrust on an undercover mission to St. Petersburg to track down a missing British engineer and to discover the whereabouts of his secret weapon, the Sea Devil. But in the world of espionage, nothing is ever what it seems, and Killigrew must pit his wits against ruthless secret policemen and beautiful but treacherous women before the trail leads him to a final confrontation.
Lunnon-Wood, Mike (1955-2008)
Let Not the Deep. HarperCollins, 1994. 344 pages
This Atlantic-set adventure-thriller carries you through its pages on waves: A ship with engine failure calls out distress and the crew of the MAEVE CORRIGAN, a superbly designed lifeboat, set out to the rescue through stormy seas. A story of courage and testing and suspense.
King’s Shilling. HarperCollins, 1998. 352 pages
While making her way home, HMS BEAUFORT, a Royal Navy Type 23 frigate, is diverted to Liberia, where civil war has broken out. We follow her deployment to rescue Westerners caught up in the carnage. A fast moving yarn of how the men and women who crew today’s Navy cope with a fast deteriorating, potentially likely scenario.
Lynn, Escott [pseud. Christopher George Holman Lawrence] (1866-1950)
The Luck of the Bertrams: a tale of Smuggling Days. W. & R. Chambers, 1928. 392 pages
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