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Nautical Fiction Index

Authors P - Pat

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:

  1. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  5. 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:

  1. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  5. 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.

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  7. 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.

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  9. 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.

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  11. 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:

  1. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  5. 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.

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  7. 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.

 

 

 

 

 

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:

  1. The Battleship Boys at sea : or, Two apprentices in Uncle Sam's navy. Altemus, 1910. 249 pages

  2. 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.


  3. 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.


  4. The Battleship Boys in the tropics : or, Upholding the American flag in a Hoduras revolution. Altemus, 1912. 252 pages

  5. The Battleship Boys under fire : or, The dash for the besieged Kam Shau mission. Altemus, 1916. 256 pages

  6. The battleship boys on the Sky Patrol : or, Fighting the Hun above the clouds. Altemus, 1918. 255 pages

  7. The battleship boys with the Adriatic chasers : or, Blocking the trail of the undersea raiders. Altemus, 1918. 255 pages

  8. 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.

 

 

 

 


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