Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Sea Adventures

"Masterman Ready, or the Wreck of the Pacific" by Capt. Frederick Marryat, follows the adventures of a devoutly Christian family (The Seagraves) and their servant (Juno) who are shipwrecked at sea and find themselves having to survive on a desert island.

Moby Dick, which has been considered the great American novel, was first published in 1851. For material, Melville drew on his experience on whaling ships between 1841 and 1844, the sinking of the whaling vessel Essex in 1820, and extensive perusal of literature on whaling and many other subjects.

In this haunting poem, a guest on his way to a wedding reception is stopped by the Ancient Mariner. With his "glittering eye" he transfixes the guest and then relates a compelling tale of a sea voyage fraught with strange happenings. The Mariner tells of journeying through tyrannous storms to ice mast-high, through mist and snow to the deadly inertia of the doldrums. There are unearthly visitations, ill omens, and supernatural happenings - all leading to the revelation of the Mariner's strange fate.

Nella Braddy (1894-1973), a pioneer among female editors, compiled this seven-story collection and published Masterpieces of Adventure: Tales of the Sea and Sky in 1921. It features seven authors: Frank Norris, W. Clark Russell, Major General E.D. Swinton, Donn Byrne, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Guy de Maupassant, and Edgar Allan Poe. A century since publication, we can perhaps have a new appreciation for tales of the sea (on ships both wrecked and abandoned, in lighthouses and with ferocious currents) and the sky (with warfare in dirigibles and using balloons). 

"Mr. Midshipman Easy" (1836) is mostly a humorous, sometimes ironic, satirical, seafaring adventure. However, the early chapters of the novel address the birth, upbringing, and education of "our Hero", Jack Easy, and set the stage for the rest of the book.

Peter LeFroy is fifteen years old, but the tales are anything but adolescent tales. They are hardened sailor tales complete with life and death at every turn. On his adventure, Peter becomes a Pirate—against his will; lives with some Eskimos—who save his life; lives through on-board fires, iceberg disasters, brutal whale hunting, and falls in love with a young girl named Mary. This book is about courage and perseverance. It was one of the first in the YA genre from England and was published the same year as Melville’s Moby Dick.

The steamship Nan-Shan, en route through the China seas to the port of Fu-chau during the season of tropical storms, with 200 returning Chinese workers aboard, encounters an ominous fall in the barometer. Phlegmatic and unimaginative Captain MacWhirr, unable to comprehend the awesome natural forces ahead of him, refuses to alter his course, pitting his ship and his own indomitable will against the fury of the storm.

Marlow—the narrator of Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness—tells the story of his first voyage to the exotic, romantic East, as a 20-year-old second officer of the ancient barque Judea. It is a story of almost comical disaster—and of the resilience of youthful hope and enthusiasm.

A young sea captain, struggling with the problems of his first far-Eastern command, is befriended by Hermann, commander of a German ship moored nearby in a treacherous river. But when the monopolistic tugboat captain Falk perceives him as a rival for Hermann's beautiful niece, the young man's problems suddenly increase—until he offers his diplomatic assistance in Falk's courtship. But Falk is haunted by an incident in his past, which he feels he must confess.