Mark Manly by J. H. Ingraham, Esq.
Price: $2.50
ePublished by
October 2019
Originally published 1848
Fiction, Age of Sail, Revolutionary War
Author: J. H. Ingraham
ePublished by
October 2019
Originally published 1848
Fiction, Age of Sail, Revolutionary War
Author: J. H. Ingraham
Mark Manly; or, The Skipper’s Lad takes place in Boston, in the years just prior to and then during the American Revolution, as the hero stands up for his inalienable rights, first as a teenage boy and then as a man, all while trying to win the heart of the British governor’s niece.
The story is good but the opening chase scene which takes up most of the first half of the book is this novel’s best feature (especially if you’re a sailor), as Mark Manly and his father, with the governor’s niece aboard, attempt to run the 1775 British blockade of Boston harbor in their fishing vessel—of a type nicknamed a “chebacca-boat,” or xebec by proper nautical terminology. The Flying Fish slides out from beneath cannon on Copp’s Hill, eludes the British flag-ship, then a guard-boat, then Castle William’s cannon fire, and finally is chased by a British Navy sloop. It’s like the opening chase scene in a Bond film, only better.
At the time this was written, people who participated in the American Revolution were still alive and bearing witness, and the way the author makes the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party seem real and personal makes one wonder how much of his fictional account is actually the true story of what happened.
The story is good but the opening chase scene which takes up most of the first half of the book is this novel’s best feature (especially if you’re a sailor), as Mark Manly and his father, with the governor’s niece aboard, attempt to run the 1775 British blockade of Boston harbor in their fishing vessel—of a type nicknamed a “chebacca-boat,” or xebec by proper nautical terminology. The Flying Fish slides out from beneath cannon on Copp’s Hill, eludes the British flag-ship, then a guard-boat, then Castle William’s cannon fire, and finally is chased by a British Navy sloop. It’s like the opening chase scene in a Bond film, only better.
At the time this was written, people who participated in the American Revolution were still alive and bearing witness, and the way the author makes the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party seem real and personal makes one wonder how much of his fictional account is actually the true story of what happened.