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Nautical Fiction Index

Author Beng - Bis

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

  1. Phantom Fleet : A story of the Navy. Collins, 1945. 192 pages

    John Prentice is a signal officer in the British Royal Navy

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  3. Sink me the Ship : A story of the Navy. Collins, 1946. 256 pages

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  5. Sea of Troubles : Another story of the British Navy. Collins, 1947. 256 pages

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  7. Cargo for Crooks : Another story of the Royal Navy. Collins, 1948. 192 pages

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  9. When Danger Threatens. Collins, 1950. 274 pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Tiger' Ransome and 'Snort' Kenton series

  1. The Pirate Destroyer, and also, The Dockyard Robbery. Hutchinson, 1951. 256 pages

    Two adventure novellas for boys based on BBC radio plays.


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  3. The Secret Weapon. Hutchinson, 1952. 248 pages


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  5. Wrecked on the Goodwins. Hutchinson, 1953. 248 pages

    The further adventures of midshipmen 'Tiger' Ransome and 'Snort' Kenton.


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  7. Detective Tiger Ransome. Hutchinson, 1957. 233 pages


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  9. The Missing Submarine. Frederick Warne, 1960. 232 pages


 

 

 

 

 

Desmond Drake Series

  1. Meet Desmond Drake. Hutchinson, 1952. 240 pages

    Desmond Drake is an agent with British Intelligence here tasked to stop a German destroyer from attacking shipping

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  3. Damn Desmond Drake! Hutchinson, 1953. 238 pages

    Drake foils a plan to hijack a cargo ship which is storing leftover Nazi nerve gas

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  5. Desmond Drake Goes West. Hutchinson, 1956. 263 pages

    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:

  1. The Sea Hunt. Harr Wagner, 1959. 69 pages

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  3. Storm Island. Harr Wagner, 1959. 66 pages

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  5. Treasure Under the Sea. Harr Wagner, 1959. 74 pages

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  7. Sea Gold. Harr Wagner 1959. 73 pages

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  9. Submarine Rescue. Harr Wagner, 1959. 73 pages

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  11. Enemy Agents. Harr Wagner, 1959. 81 pages

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  13. Castaways. Harr Wagner, 1959. 81 pages

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  15. The Pearl Divers. Harr Wagner, 1959. 89 pages

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  17. Frogmen in Action. Harr Wagner, 1959. 89 pages

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  19. Danger Below. Harr Wagner, 1962. 97 pages

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  21. Whale Hunt. (author: James C. Coleman) Harr Wagner, 1962. 98 pages

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  23. Rocket Divers. (author: James C. Coleman) Harr Wagner, 1962. 98 pages

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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:.

  1. Tomorrow the World : in which Cadet Otto Prohaska carries the Habsburg Empire's civilizing mission to the entirely unreceptive peoples of Africa and Oceania. Heinemann, 1994. 289 pages

    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.

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  3. A Sailor of Austria : in which, without really intending to, Otto Prohaska becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire. Secker & Warburg, 1991. 368 pages

    Otto's account, recollected at age 101, of his service as a submarine captain from 1915 to 1918.

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  5. The Emperor's Coloured Coat : in which Otto Prohaska, future hero of the Habsburg Empire, has an unexpectedly interesting time while not quite managing to avert the First World War. Secker & Warburg, 1992. 374 pages

    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.

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  7. The Two-Headed Eagle : In which Otto Prohaska takes a break as the Habsburg Empire's leading U-Boat ace and does something even more thanklessly dangerous. Secker & Warburg, 1993. 367 pages

    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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