Captain MacWhirr cannot fathom anything outside the facts of his own life. His first mate, Mr. Jukes, is the perfect contrast as an imaginative man prone to speaking in figurative language. Though they are opposites, MacWhirr and Jukes respect each other and run a tight ship, until the crew notices the barometer predicting a serve storm. Jukes and the crew suggest alternate paths to MacWhirr, but he is unconvinced. Since MacWhirr has not experienced...

The Sea-Hawk is a novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1915. The story is set over the years 1588—1593 and concerns a retired Cornish seafaring gentleman, Sir Oliver Tressilian, who is villainously betrayed by a jealous half-brother. After being forced to serve as a slave on a galley, Sir Oliver is liberated by Barbary pirates. He joins the pirates, gaining the name "Sakr-el-Bahr" (the hawk of the sea), and swears vengeance against...

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the "cat's table"--as far from the Captain's Table as can be--with a ragtag group of "insignificant" adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed...

First published in 1914, "The Mutiny of the Elsinore" is a novel by American writer Jack London that centers around the death of a ship's captain and the ensuing conflict that arises as a result of a split in leadership and loyalty. The story is partially based on London's own experiences voyaging around Cape Horn on a ship called "The Dirigo" in 1912. John Griffith London (1876 – 1916), commonly known as Jack London, was an American journalist,...

Set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana, this story of revolution, deception, and self-betrayal centers on Nostromo, a handsome Italian sailor, who, like Costaguana, is being consumed by secret guilt and corruption.

"Elmore Leonard is in a class of one....The greatest crime writer who ever lived."
—Dennis Lehane

"Elmore Leonard is our greatest crime novelist...the best in the business."
—Washington Post

44 novels and still going strong! The incomparable Elmore Leonard—"The reigning King Daddy of crime writers" (Seattle Times)—is back with Djibouti, a gripping, twisting, playful, and always

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A mysterious sea monster, theorized by some to be a giant narwhal, is sighted by ships of several nations; an ocean liner is also damaged by the creature. The United States government finally assembles an expedition to track down and destroy the menace. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a noted French marine biologist and narrator of the story, master harpoonist Ned Land, and Aronnax's faithful assistant Conseil join the expedition. After much fruitless...

Captain Blood is an adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini. The protagonist is the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, a fictional Irish physician who had had a wide-ranging career as a soldier and sailor (including a commission as a captain under the Dutch admiral De Ruyter) before settling down to practice medicine in the town of Bridgwater in Somerset. The book opens with him attending to his geraniums while the town prepares to fight for the Duke of Monmouth....

The fourth book in the Alan Lewrie series. 1783: His Majesty's secret agent... Back from war in the Americas, young navy veteran Alan Lewrie finds London pure pleasure. Then, at Plymouth he boards the trading ship Telesto to find out why merchantmen are disappearing in the East Indies. Between the pungent shores of Calcutta and teeming Canton, Lewrie-reunited with his scoundrel father-discovers a young French captain, backed by an armada of Mindanaon...

The Rescue, A Romance of the Shallows (1920) is one of Joseph Conrad's works contained in what is now sometimes called the Lingard Trilogy, a group of novels based on Conrad's experience as mate on the steamer Vidar. Although it was the last of the three novels to be published, after Almayer's Folly (1895) and An Outcast of the Islands (1896), the events related in the novel precede those. The story follows Captain Tom Lingard, the recurring protagonist...