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 1908
Paine, Ralph Delahaye (1871-1925)
The Praying Skipper and other stories. Outing, 1906. 292 pages
The praying skipper -- A victory unforeseen -- Corporal Sweeney, deserter -- The last pilot schooner -- The jade teapot -- Captain Arendt's choice -- Surfman Brainard's "day off"
A Cadet of the Black Star Line. C. Scribner's Sons, 1910. 198 pages
The Wrecking Master. C. Scribner's Sons, 1911. 185 pages
The Judgments of the Sea, and other stories. Sturgis & Walton, 1912. 372 pages
The judgments of the sea -- Captain Arendt's choice -- The praying skipper -- The master of the Ping Yang -- The whistling buoy -- The last pilot schooner -- Shipmates -- Dick Floyd, mate -- Sealed orders -- The surfman's holiday -- John Janvin, shipmaster -- Corporal Sweeney, deserter -- The jade teapot
The Adventures of Captain O'Shea. C. Scribner's Sons, 1913. 424 pages
The Long Road Home. C. Scribner's Sons, 1916. 344 pages
The Call of the Off-Shore Wind. Houghton Mifflin, 1918. 373 pages
Blackbeard-Buccaneer. Penn Publishing, 1922. 309 pages
Jack Cockrell and his uncle's voyage to England is soon interrupted when the pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, captures their ship.
Comrades of the Rolling Ocean. Houghton Mifflin, 1923. 322 pages
Adventures of three young men at sea.
Privateers of '76. Penn Publishing, 1923. 316 pages
Four Bells: a tale of the Caribbean. Houghton Mifflin, 1924. 377 pages
A young man seeks treasure in the seas off the Spainish Main.
In Zanzibar. Houghton Mifflin, 1925. 327 pages
A machinist's mate off an American cruiser has an eventful shore leave.
The Penfold Adventure. Houghton Mifflin, 1926. 309 pages
Midshipman Wickham. Grosset & Dunlap, 1926. 220 pages
Life of a midshipman at the Naval Academy, including football and action at sea. For young readers.
Pakington, Humphrey (1888-1974)
Roving Eye. W. W. Norton, 1932. 283 pages
A light comedy - typical of the author's output - of a British naval officer pursued by several suitors
Palinurus [pseud.]
The Paper Boat. James Bowden, 1897. 296 pages
Six short stories, five of which have to do with yachting. My first big race -- The voyage of the Florette -- A near shave -- Due west -- Diamond cut diamond -- The telephone incident
Palliser, Marcus (1949-2002)
Matthew Loftus series:
Swept away to the Spanish Main, Matthew Stalbone is plunged into a bloody life of pillage and prize money.
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.
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:
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.
1794-1796. Lieutenant Delancey is sent on impossible mission involving smugglers and international intrigue off the French coast.
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.
1798-1801. Delancey gets command of the 18 gun sloop MERLIN and cruises the Mediterranean on convoy duty.
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.
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:
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.
A fugitive Patrick Dalton refits a derelict ship in the Chesapeake wilderness and makes a deal to smuggle cannon to the Carolinas.
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.
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.
Parkman, Sydney M. [Muller] (1895-1995)
Ship Ashore. Hodder & Stoughton, 1936. 314 pages
The descendants of a seventeenth-century shipwreck are found on a mysterious island off the coast of Borneo
Parrish, Anne (1888-1957)
Sea Level. Harper & Bros, 1946. 373 pages
A Grand Hotel-type novel of an ill-assorted group of Americans on a cruise
Parrish, Randall (1858-1923)
Contraband: a present-day romance of the North Atlantic. Eveleigh Nash, 1917. 351 pages
Wartime mystery starting on the private yacht of the Copper King, and then on a freighter, filled with contraband of war, which is sunk while attempting to run the blockade
Wolves of the sea : being a tale of the colonies from the manuscript of one Geoffry Carlyle, seaman, narrating certain strange adventures which befell him aboard the pirate craft Namur. A.C. McClurg, 1918. 355 pages
Partington, Norman
The Sunshine Patriot : a novel of Benedict Arnold. St. Martins, 1975. 221 pages
Includes a section on the Valcour Island naval battle
Fire on the Rock. Macmillan, 1976. 192 pages
The Siege of Gibraltar, 1779-1783
Patchin, Frank Gee (1861-1925)
Battleship Boys series:
The boys, Sam Hickey and Dan Davis, serve aboard the battleship LONG ISLAND and gain their petty officer ratings. For young readers.
Sam and Dave are on the loose in Paris, Egypt and European ports between.
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. U.K. title: The Mystery of the Gregory Kotovsky
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.
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