The Sea-King by Captain Frederick Marryat
Price: $2.45
ePublished by
May 2020
Originally published 1878
Dime novel, Age of Sail, War of 1812
Author: Captain Frederick Marryat
ePublished by
May 2020
Originally published 1878
Dime novel, Age of Sail, War of 1812
Author: Captain Frederick Marryat
Published in 1878 as number 108 in a series of dime novels called the “The Seaside Library” by New York publisher George Munro, this edition of The Sea-King is assumed to be a reprint of a novel written circa 1830, and some bibliophiles maintain that the credited author of this dime-novel version, Frederick Marryat (1792–1848), was originally merely the editor of a novel actually written by Robert Burts (17??–1839). Marryat’s greater fame as a writer may have given later publishers incentive to give him sole credit.
But whatever his contribution, the pace and mood of The Sea-King is very much a Marryat pace and mood—dark, emotionally entangled, family connections often overshadowing the naval action—as it tells the story of a young man’s estrangement from his father, running away to sea, romance with and estrangement from a woman, and then rapprochement with both as he repeatedly fends off the vindictive jealousy of a bitter, but accidental, rival.
But whatever his contribution, the pace and mood of The Sea-King is very much a Marryat pace and mood—dark, emotionally entangled, family connections often overshadowing the naval action—as it tells the story of a young man’s estrangement from his father, running away to sea, romance with and estrangement from a woman, and then rapprochement with both as he repeatedly fends off the vindictive jealousy of a bitter, but accidental, rival.