Bengtsson, Frans Gunnar (1894-1954)
The Long Ships: a saga of the Viking age. Knopf, 1954. 504 pages
Rode Orm: hemma och i osterled in the original Swedish. Adventures of Red Orm, son of a pirate, master of his own ship and afraid of no man. Bengtsson uses a rather dry style, like that of the Icelandic sagas, to describe very exciting events, and gives a vivid portrayal of the time and places without resorting to much description. A ripping yarn. Made into a movie in 1963.
Bennett, Geoffrey M. (AKA Sea-Lion) (1908-1983)
John Prentice Series
John Prentice is a signal officer in the British Royal Navy
Sink me the Ship : A story of the Navy. Collins, 1946. 256 pages
'Tiger' Ransome and 'Snort' Kenton series
The Pirate Destroyer, and also, The Dockyard Robbery. Hutchinson, 1951. 256 pages
Two adventure novellas for boys based on BBC radio plays.
The Secret Weapon. Hutchinson, 1952. 248 pages
Wrecked on the Goodwins. Hutchinson, 1953. 248 pages
The further adventures of midshipmen 'Tiger' Ransome and 'Snort' Kenton.
Detective Tiger Ransome. Hutchinson, 1957. 233 pages
The Missing Submarine. Frederick Warne, 1960. 232 pages
Desmond Drake Series
Desmond Drake is an agent with British Intelligence here tasked to stop a German destroyer from attacking shipping
Damn Desmond Drake! Hutchinson, 1953. 238 pages
Drake foils a plan to hijack a cargo ship which is storing leftover Nazi nerve gas
Drake is the courier for a mircofilm reel full of sensitive information
This Creeping Evil. Hutchinson, 1950. 176 pages
Allegory of the UK isles under siege by sea monsters
The Invisible Ships. Hutchinson, 1950. 208 pages
SF novel
The Diamond Rock. Hutchinson & Co., 1952. 231 pages
Novel based around the garrisoning of Diamond Rock in the Caribbean during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Stolen Cipher. Hutchinson, 1954. 224 pages
A Snub Conway and Peter Shelley story
Operation Fireball. John Long, 1959. 190 pages
Thriller about Brittain's first attempt to launch a ballistic nuclear missile, and the attempt to sabotage the project.
The Falkland Islands Mystery. Hutchinson, 1960. 191 pages
Ex Nazis in the Falklands Threaten Britain. A Snub Conway and Peter Shelley story.
Down Among the Dead Men. John Long, 1961. 191 pages
The UK Admiralty attempts to locate and rescue a lost submarine
Death in the Dog Watches. Hutchinson, 1962. 192 pages
A crime story with roots in both the Battle of Jutland and the Holocaust. Later reprinted under the author's real name Geoffrey Bennett.
Benno, Mark E
This Wonderful Year: The Adventures of Mr. Edward Pamprill. CreateSpace, 2011. 562 pages
It is the year 1805, and a weary England prepares for Napoleon's next move. Events don't seem to bother Mr. Edward Pamprill, however; he's too busy spending his father's money and living a life of idle pleasure. The good times are cut short when his father (the lecherous Baron Pamprill) secretly arranges for his son's abduction and removal to a British man-of-war, and it is at sea that young Mr. Pamprill truly begins his education. Mr. Pamprill battles Napoleon, endures raging storms, and struggles to keep alive the passion for the mystery woman he left behind while his heart is besieged by some of the era's most beautiful and dangerous women.
Bensen, R. D.
Swashbuckler. Bantam, 1976. 167 pages
Slash and hack Carribean pirate adventure. Novel adapted from the screenplay by Jeffrey Bloom, from a story by Paul Wheeler.
Benzoni, Juliette
Marianne and the Privateer. Putnam, 1971. 317 pages
Fiery temptress is rescued, resumes her affair with American privateer. Set in the early 1800s. Originally in French.
Beresford, J. D. (John Davys) (1873-1947) and Wynne-Tyson, Esmé (1898-1972)
Men in the Same Boat. Hutchison, 1943. 103 pages
A torpedoed ship’s lifeboat which drifts helplessly across the seas while its inmates struggle vainly against thirst, hunger and exposure.
Berres, Frances
The Deep Sea Adventure series:
Berry, Don
To Build a Ship. Viking Press, 1963. 209 pages
Building a ship in the wilderness on Tillamook Bay in the early pioneer days.
Berry, Erick [pseud. Allena Champlin] (1892-1974)
Go and Find Wind. Oxford University Press, 1939. 251 pages
On board a clipper ship in the 1850s.
Biggins, John (1949- )
Otto Prohaska series:.
Loosely based on the round-the-world voyage in 1900-1902 of the steam frigate DONAU, which was the last wooden sailing warship to make an ocean cruise.
Otto's account, recollected at age 101, of his service as a submarine captain from 1915 to 1918.
Covers 1913 to 1915, during which time Otto serves as deck officer, seaplane pilot, Naval Aide to the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and captain of a Chinese junk.
It is the summer of 1916 and, as luck would have it, Naval Lieutenant Otto Prohaska is assigned to the nascent, unreliable and utterly frightening Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Flying Service. Ottto's aerial chauffeur is the self-willed Sergeant-Pilot Toth, with whom he can only communicate in broken Latin -- although when all else fails, screaming will suffice!
Binns, Archie (1899-1971)
Lightship. Reynal and Hitchcock, 1934. 345 pages
Lives of the crew of a lightship off the northwest coast.
You Rolling River. C. Scribner's Sons, 1947. 342 pages
Astoria around the turn of the century.
The Enchanted Islands. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1956. 239 pages
The adventures of the Hill children aboard the ketch Wanderer in the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound
The Headwaters. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1957. 280 pages
Smuggling between the San Juan & Hawaiian Islands in the 1890s
Sea Pup. Meredith, 1954. 215 pages
Clint Barlow finds a motherless woolly white baby seal while out on one of his "scientific expeditions" on the Puget Sound, then raises "Buster" as his own. Reprinted as Here, Buster!
Sea Pup Again. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1965. 156 pages
Clint Barlow has donated his pet seal Buster to an Oregon aquarium, so he is both surprised and pleased while skin-diving in Puget Sound waters, Buster swims up to him
Bissell, Richard Pike (1913-1977)
A Stretch on the River. Little, Brown, 1950. 242 pages
"Picaresque" novel about towboating on the upper Mississippi. Simultaneously hailed by the newspaper in Dubuque and banned by the Dubuque Catholic Mothers Purity Association.
High Water. Little, Brown, 1954. 280 pages
Trials of the mate of a diesel towboat trying to push too many barges from St. Louis to St. Paul during a record breaking Mississippi flood.
Goodbye Ava. Little, Brown, 1960. 241 pages
Most of the action takes place on houseboats.
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