Authors P - Pea
Packard, Winthrop (1862-1943)
The Young Ice Whalers. Houghton, Mifflin, 1903. 397 pages
The exploits of several young men on a whaling expedition in the Arctic.
Padfield, Peter (1932-2022)
Salt and Steel. Century, 1985. 629 pages
The story of a family growing up in Hampstead before 1914. Two of the boys follow their father into the RN and serve in WW II. "The periods of action, whether in the family yacht, PEACOCK, or later in battle cruisers or on the Somme, set a stunning pace."
Pahlow, Gertrude (1881-1937)
"The Wonders of the Deep". Cosmopolitan, July 1980
Paine, Ralph Delahaye (1871-1925)
Midshipman Wickham. Grosset & Dunlap, 1926. 220 pages
Life of a midshipman at the Naval Academy, including football and action at sea. For young readers.
Palinurus [pseud.]
The Paper Boat. James Bowden, 1897. 296 pages
Six short stories, five of which have to do with yachting.
Palliser, Marcus (1949-2002)
Matthew Loftus series:
Matthew's Prize. Heinemann, 1999. 293 pages
Swept away to the Spanish Main, Matthew Stalbone is plunged into a bloody life of pillage and prize money.
Devil of a Fix. Heinemann, 2000. 352 pages
Voted captain by his crew to keep the vessel legal by seeking profitable, honest trade, Matthew is determinedly against allowing the Cornelius to be used for piracy and plunder. However, his crew lusts after the spoils that their fast, well-armed ship can win, and when Matthew fails to obtain the promised gold for their goods, discontent begins to rumble.
To The Bitter End. Heinemann, 2001. 252 pages
Now a successful fur trader sailing the Newfoundland coast, Matthew Loftus wants to put his skirmishes with privateers and pirates behind him. That is until the English Navy sails into the colony of Esperantia and puts it under their protection. Forced by the Navy to embark on a rescue mission to Hudson’s Bay, Matthew discovers that the true agenda is to foil the French.
Palmiotti, Anthony
First Voyage. Fireship, 2017. 213 pages
In 1938, when the old tramp freighter Arrow arrives in Hamburg, the Nazi movement is making life difficult for those who don’t fit the mold of the new Germany. One of the crew wants to get his family out, but he has to rely on his crew mates. Will they rise to the challenge and bond together in order to outwit the pursuing Nazis?
Death Beneath the Waves. Fireship, 2019. 219 pages
Merchant marines vs. German U-Boats of the coast of America.
Pangborn, Edgar (1909-1976)
Wilderness of Spring. Rinehart and Company, 1958. 374 pages
Two orphaned brothers in New England in the early 1700s. The elder ends up on a misbegotten piracy adventure while the younger comes to terms with his homosexuality.
Paretti, Sandra (1935-1994)
The Magic Ship. St. Marin's, 1979. 342 pages
Translation of Das Zauberschiff. Novel is based on the true story of the huge German 4-stack liner CECILE steaming into Frenchman Bay at Bar Harbor, Maine, and the effect she and her crew had on the town during that dreamlike summer at the dawn of WW I.
Parker, Richard (1915- )
A Moor of Spain : the story of a Rogue. Penguin, 1953. 152 pages
Moorish lad survives the siege of Malaga, converts to Christianity, participates in the siege of Granada, joins Columbus on his first voyage to the New World and becomes a Native American prince.
Parker, Thomas Drayton (1871-1950)
The spy on the submarine; or, Over and under the sea. W.A. Wilde, 1918. 298 pages
Parkinson, C. Northcote (1909-1993)
Richard Delancey series:
The Guernseyman. J. Murray, 1982. 175 pages
1775-1782. Parkinson's hero, Delancey, is caught up in riots and "volunteers" for the navy. Follows his early career throught the American War of Independence, culminating at the Siege of Gibraltar.
Devil to Pay. Houghton Mifflin, 1973. 273 pages
1794-1796. Lieutenant Delancey is sent on impossible mission involving smugglers and international intrigue off the French coast.
The Fireship. Houghton Mifflin, 1975. 187 pages
1796-1798. This is really two short novels back to back. In the first, Delancey is the second Lt. and acting first Lt. of the GRATTON during the Battle of Camperdown. The Dutch are defeated and every first Lt. is promoted to Master and Commander, except Delancey, whose captain has the discretion to allow the now recovered original first Lt. to take the promotion. In the second half Delancey is given command of a fireship. He makes the best of bad situation. Being of a scientific and methodical turn of mind, he researchs the previous use of fireships and finds that they are not frequently used, and are not particularly useful, but on those occasions when they have been used in the past, the commander has received a promotion. Delancey's command is one of the smaller vessels used to patrol the coast of Ireland, and intercepting a French expeditionary force he is able to put his fireship to its intended purpose, thus assuring himself of the promotion he lost out on in the first half of the novel.
Touch and Go. Houghton Mifflin, 1977. 230 pages
1798-1801. Delancey gets command of the 18 gun sloop MERLIN and cruises the Mediterranean on convoy duty.
So Near, So Far. John Murray, 1981. 227 pages
1801-1804. During the Peace of Amiens Richard Delancey is ashore, but still manages to get in trouble. He forms an attachment to the pretty actress Fiona that threatens his career, and mixes with men of the Opposition Party. When war with France breaks out again Napoleon's first move is to plan an invasion of England, and rumours circulate of steam-driven ships and a warcraft that can travel under the water. Delancey's courage and skill are called upon for the most audacious adventure of his career.
Dead Reckoning. Houghton Mifflin, 1978. 276 pages
1805-1811. Now a post captain, Delancey and the 32 gun frigate LAURA are off to the East Indies to battle two French frigates.
The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower. Joseph, 1970. 304 pages
Hilarious send-up of military biography and a great overview of Hornblower. Parkinson includes detailed appendices with delicious information such as that HH's great-grandson commanded the BELLEROPHON at Jutland, and that a great-great-grandson was a sub-lieutenant on the ACHILLES during the Battle of the River Plate. How can you not love that? Also includes a letter from Horatio himself explaining what really happened aboard HMS RENOWN.
Parkinson, Dan (1935-2001)
Patrick Dalton series:
The Fox and the Faith. Kensington, 1989. 350 pages
In 1777, finding himself falsely accused of treason, Royal Navy Lt. Patrick Dalton steals a British prize and attempts an escape through a gauntlet of privateers and British and Colonial warships.
The Fox and the Fury. Kensington, 1989. 351 pages
A fugitive Patrick Dalton refits a derelict ship in the Chesapeake wilderness and makes a deal to smuggle cannon to the Carolinas.
The Fox and the Flag. Kensington, 1990. 351 pages
Patrick Dalton may have come up with a plan to clear his name, but he needs the luck of the Irish to avoid capture by both sides long enough to see it through.
The Fox and the Fortune. Pinnacle, 1992. 256 pages
In the spring of 1778, the opposing British and US navies are supporting their armies in the north, leaving the southern US coast wide open to pirates. After eluding a long British search, Patrick Dalton and his crew find their fates increasingly entangled with a particularly cutthroat pirate.
Patchin, Frank Gee (1861-1925)
Battleship Boys series:
- The Battleship Boys at sea : or, Two apprentices in Uncle Sam's
navy. Altemus, 1910. 249
pages
- The Battleship Boys' First Step Upward : or, Winning their grades as petty
officers. Altemus, 1911. 254
pages
The boys, Sam Hickey and Dan Davis, serve aboard the battleship LONG ISLAND and gain their petty officer ratings. For young readers.
- The Battleship Boys in Foreign Service : or, Earning new ratings in
European seas. Altemus, 1911. 212
pages
Sam and Dave are on the loose in Paris, Egypt and European ports between.
- The Battleship Boys in the tropics : or, Upholding the American flag in a
Hoduras revolution. Altemus, 1912. 252
pages
- The Battleship Boys under fire : or, The dash for the besieged Kam Shau
mission. Altemus, 1916. 256
pages
- The battleship boys on the Sky Patrol : or, Fighting the Hun above the
clouds. Altemus, 1918. 255
pages
- The battleship boys with the Adriatic chasers : or, Blocking the trail of
the undersea raiders. Altemus, 1918. 255
pages
- The Battleship Boys in the Wardroom : or, Winning their commissions as line
officers on the eve of the great war. Altemus, 1918. 213 pages
Patrick, Joseph [pseud. Joseph Patrick Walsh]
King's Arrow. Lippincott, 1951. 380 pages
English gentleman gets 'pressed into a Royal Navy warship (in peacetime!!), escapes to the American colonies and becomes a shipper and ocassional smuggler, all while trying to win the love of the girl he left behind in Britain, who has also come to America. Set in the late 1760s-early 1770s. Good read, despite some inaccuracies and anachronisms.
Patrick, William (editor)
Mysterious Sea Stories. Salem House, 1985. 247 pages
Strange horrors at sea, Contents: Ms. found in a bottle / Edgar Allan Poe -- The legend of the bell rock / Captain Frederick Marryat -- Hood's isle and the hermit Oberlus / Herman Melville -- A bewitched ship / W. Clark Russell -- J. Habakuk Jephson's statement / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- The benevolent ghost and Captain Lowrie / Richard Sale -- Make westing / Jack London -- The black mate / Joseph Conrad -- A matter of fact / Rudyard Kipling -- The finding of the Graiken / William Hope Hodgson -- Davy Jones's gift / John Masefield -- In the abyss / H.G. Wells -- Undersea guardians / Ray Bradbury -- The turning of the tide / C.S. Forester.
Pattinson, James (1915-2009)
Soldier, Sail North. George G. Harrap, 1954. 224 pages
The gunners on the Golden Ray were a strangely assorted bunch. The seamen were more of a type, but the soldiers seconded to the job could hardly have differed more from one another. There was the professional, Sergeant Willis, in love with his job, Vernon the intellectual, and Miller the tragic communistic misfit who found his Russian Mecca not quite what he expected. The background and past of each character in the book are woven into the narrative of the ordeal at sea in both directions, and experiences on Russian soil at Murmansk.
Last in Convoy. George G. Harrap, 1957. 254 pages
A convoy of forty-five ships try to make it from Halifax to England. The convoy becomes the butt of enemy submarine torpedoes. Terror strikes the crews who see their comrades drowning or becoming human torches amid the burning oil spilling from the ships. Attention focuses on the s.s. Regal Gesture, whose engines fail and is therefore left behind, undefended. Can the s.s. Regal Gesture make port with a fire in her hold, an unexploded bomb in her forecastle, with no wireless and a half- crazed man for a skipper?
The Silent Voyage. McDowell, Obolensky, 1959. 196 pages
Two sailors are rescued by the Soviet mystery ship which rammed their Scottish merchantman in the Barents Sea. Now they know too much and their lives are in danger. Their only hope lies in escape from a ship at sea.
On Desperate Seas. George G. Harrap, 1961. 224 pages
None of the crew is particularly gratified when the British tanker is chosen to carry a cargo of industrial alcohol from Philadelphia to Russia. And when six American seamen are earmarked to take passage to Archangel there is a concocted human mixture as explosive as the liquid swilling in the tanks.
Paulsen, Gary
The Voyage of the Frog. Orchard, 1989. 141 pages
When David goes out on his sailboat to scatter his recently deceased uncle's ashes to the wind, he is caught in a fierce storm and must survive many days on his own as he works out his feelings about life and his uncle. For young readers.
Paylin, Jolie, [pseud.Nancy Alice Judy Behrend] (1913-1993)
The Gill Netters. Hillsdale Educational, 1979. 146 pages
Commercial fishing in Wisconsin and Northern Michigan after the Civil War. The story of how the Danish Johannsen family emigrate to the shores of Lake Michigan, to build a new settlement and life as commercial fishermen.
Peacock, B. N.
A Tainted Dawn : The Great War (1792-1815). Fireship Press, 2012. 352 pages
England and Spain are on the brink of war. France, allied by treaty with Spain, readies her warships. Three youths - the son of an English carpenter, the son of a naval captain, and the son of a French court tailor - meet in London, a chance encounter that entwines their lives ever after. The English boys find themselves on the same frigate bound for the Caribbean. The Frenchman sails to Trinidad, where he meets an even more zealous Spanish revolutionary. As diplomats in Europe race to avoid conflict, war threatens to explode in the Caribbean, with the three youths pitted against each other. The planned sequels were never published.
Pearson, Ridley
Blood of the Albatross. St. Martin's, 1986. 307 pages
A good old-fashioned page-turner of a mystery, set in Seattle, with enough plot twists and sleazy characters to keep things moving at an exhilarating pace. Jay Becker, sailing instructor by day, rock star by night, takes the beautiful German woman Marlene as a student and becomes involved in brutal deaths and treason that seem to stem from her shadowy employer, known only as the "Albatross".
Pease, Howard (1894-1974)
The Tattooed Man: a tale of strange adventures, befalling Tod Moran, mess boy of the tramp steamer ARABY, upon his first voyage from San Francisco to Genoa, via the Panama Canal. Doubleday, Page, 1926. 332 pages
Teenaged Tod goes in search of his missing older brother. He takes a job as a cabin boy, and later stoker on a freighter out of San Francisco bound for Genoa. An interesting story because of the vividly realistic portrayal of life aboard tramp freighters in the inter-war years. Also interesting is the treatment of drug addiction in the days when it wasn't so painfully common.
The Jinx Ship: the dark adventure that befell Tod Moran when he shipped as fireman aboard the tramp steamer CONGO, bound out of New York for Caribbean ports. Doubleday, Page, 1927. 324 pages
Tod Moran, stranded and jobless, signs onto the CONGO, a ship with a bad rep, and he's in the middle of several mysteries.
Shanghai Passage: being a tale of mystery and adventure on the high seas in which Stuart Ormsby is shanghaied aboard the tramp steamer NANKING bound for ports on the China coast. Doubleday, 1929. 301 pages
Secret Cargo: the story of Larry Matthews and his dog Sambo, forecastle mates on the tramp steamer CREOLE TRADER, New Orleans to the South Seas. Doubleday, Doran, 1931. 272 pages
What was that strange chest buried in the coal scuttle? What's being smuggled? Or who?
The Ship Without a Crew: the strange adventures of Tod Moran, third mate of the tramp steamer ARABY. Doubleday, Doran, 1934. 304 pages
Aboard ARABY in the South Pacific, Tod finds an unmanned schooner, loses it in a gale, and has to find answers in the Tahitian jungle.
Wind in the Rigging: an adventurous voyage of Tod Moran on the tramp steamer SUMATRA, New York to North Africa. Doubleday, Doran, 1935. 333 pages
Story based in part on a discusssion in the 1930s about whether munitions makers were a cause of war.
Hurricane Weather: how Stan Ridley met adventure on the trading schooner "Wind-rider". Doubleday, Doran, 1936. 296 pages
Who would think a simple vacation visit and short cruise with an old friend in the South Pacific would involve pirates, cannibals, a devastating cyclone?
Fog Horns: a story of the San Francisco water front. Doubleday, Doran, 1937. 295 pages
A young man buys a seaman's certificate to work on the Araby and is plunged into intrigue, with a strong working-man's point of view.
Jungle River. Doubleday, Doran, 1938. 295 pages
An American boy searches for his lost father in the New Guinea jungle; praos and dugouts, Papuans and, on the eve of war, Japanese.
Captain Binnacle. Dodd, Mead, 1938. 160 pages
Captain Binnacle sails his ancient river boat on dry land, stuck in a field near Stockton; repelling pirates and savages with the help of three children. For younger readers.
Long Wharf: A Story of Young San Francisco. Dodd, Mead, 1939. 219 pages
Following cabin boy Danny Mason of the barkentine "Niantic", a real ship left deserted in San Francisco Bay in 1850, complicated by gold fever; the Regulators vigilantes; Chinese; jail; cholera; fire.
The Black Tanker: the adventures of a landlubber on the ill-fated last voyage of the oil tank steamer "Zambora". Doubleday, Doran, 1941. 312 pages
A Stanford student gets word that his father, a doctor working in China, has been seriously injured in a Japanese bombing raid. The only way he can get to China is to sign on as an engine wiper on a tanker, whose mate is Tod Moran, carrying oil to the Japanese bases in China. There is a murder on board, a storm at sea, and some adventures with the Japanese and Chinese after they arrive. The book has an American neutrality political viewpoint, flavored with a strong distaste for Japanese imperialism.
Night Boat, and other Tod Moran mysteries. Doubleday, Doran, 1942. 267 pages
Contents: Night boat -- Passengers for Panama -- The trader of Noa Noa -- The ship bound North -- The silver outrigger -- Journey by night -- Toll bridge -- Black-out.
Heart of Danger: a tale of adventure on land and sea with Tod Moran, third mate of the tramp steamer ARABY. Doubleday, 1946. 336 pages
The chief figure is a brilliant young Jewish violinist, with a great career ahead, who gives it all up to become a spy in wartime Germany. Tod Moran, third mate of the tramp steamer ARABY is involved in helping smuggle the young spy into the continent, and somewhat in the difficulties of his decision.
Bound for Singapore: being a true and faithful account of the making of an adventurer. Doubleday, 1948. 243 pages
An autobiographical glimpse of Pease's beginnings: how young "Chet" (Howard himself) first became a writer, how he and friends selected his first stories, and why he first shipped out, bound for "Singapore" (Anywhere), to gain experience.
Captain of the Araby: the story of a voyage. Doubleday, 1953. 247 pages
This is also a Tod Moran book, and the captain of the title is a man he sails with in most of the books. He is the "Tattooed Man" as well.
Shipwreck: the strange adventures of Renny Mitchum, mess boy of the trading schooner SAMARANG. Doubleday, 1957. 257 pages
Renny ships out with no allies in a probably vain attempt to discover what has happened to his father, apparently shipwrecked and lost on a vague island in the least known part of the South Pacific. Pease deals with racism head-on, when Renny has to take instruction from a Filipino cook.