Best novels or short stories set at sea

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

I recently read 'A High Wind in Jamaica' by Richard Hughes. Published in 1929, it is from a completely different world. Sort of a cross between Lord of the Flies and Peter Pan, it tells the story of a group of children being evacuated to England because of a terrible hurricane in Jamaica. Their ship is set upon by pirates, who find themselves being manipulated by the children. it's full of casual violence and shocking events. I recommend.

[Guy Profumo]

Of course, the "Doctor Syn" novels were popular too

[Sam]

I recently read 'A High Wind in Jamaica' by Richard Hughes. Published in 1929, it is from a completely different world. Sort of a cross between Lord of the Flies and Peter Pan, it tells the story of a group of children being evacuated to England because of a terrible hurricane in Jamaica. Their ship is set upon by pirates, who find themselves being manipulated by the children. it's full of casual violence and shocking events. I recommend.

I got a copy of this sent to me by the Folio Society years ago when I was a member (back in the days when you had to be a member to order from them) and they did a mystery box giveaway (£30 or so for a box of five or six books they picked at random off their shelves). Never read it, but for some reason it was one of the ones I picked up to bring back here when I went to see my parents in 2017 or 2018, so I've got it on my bookshelf at the moment. This is the first time I think I've ever heard of it other than when I first googled it to find out what I'd been sent. I'll check it out one day.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Sam - I was alerted to it when listening to Radio 4's 'A Good Read' - it was the choice of Meg Rosoff, who was on with Alexei Sayle. I think the episode is still available.

[Sam]

Thanks, Vicarious Thrillseeker. I'll check that out at some point if I get time (not right now, as it's 4:20am and I'm going to bed as soon as I've got this week's podcast online).

[Sporting]

Thanks, Vicarious Thrillseeker. I'll check that out at some point if I get time (not right now, as it's 4:20am and I'm going to bed as soon as I've got this week's podcast online).

4.20 and going to bed! In half an hour I'd be getting up.

[Lang Spoon]

I'm surprised they haven't run you out of the Autonoma keeping those hours.

[Jobi1]

I love Conrad. Obviously his work needs to come with a hefty "may contain outdated language" warning, but the stories are great.

Cross-posting with another art form, a lot of the tales mentioned here inspired an album I absolutely love by Italian singer Vinicio Capossela, called Marinai, profeti e balene (Sailors, prophets and whales) – Billy Budd and Lord Jim both get named songs. He toured it with a stage set done up like the belly of a whale; really wish I'd got to see it live!

[WOM]

Most recent in my 'lost at sea' binge is Survive The Savage Sea by Dougal Robertson. In 1972, Robertson and his family (wife, 4 kids, one friend) set out on a round-the-world sailing expedition to school their kids in the university of life. After leaving Panama, then the Galapagos Islands, their sailboat was rammed by a pod of whales and they had to survive for 38 days on a leaking raft and a tippy fiberglass dingy.

As a story, it's gripping. As a read, it's not a patch on Adrift (see previous page). It's also written so 'me me me' by Robertson, that his son eventually wrote a response book that purports to tell the whole story. (I'll be ordering that later today). But as harrowing lost-at-sea tales go, it's a good one.

[Patrick Thistle]

It's going to sound silly, given the Conrads, Melvilles and O'Brians populating the rest of this thread, but I always enjoyed We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea by Arthur Ransome, which stood out as an unusual twist in the Swallows & Amazons series. Unlike in the usual seafaring stories, this is a low-to-the-waterline eye view: these are young protagonists who aren't hardy seadogs nor or a great ship, but instead get swept out into the North Sea in a little yacht and have to battle through with nowt but their own pluck and ingenuity.

The Swallows & Amazons also go to sea in the slightly ridiculous Peter Duck, which is a 'story within a story' but captured my attention as a kid anyway. There was a follow up called Missee Lee that I started reading but I think I was a bit old for it by then and I gave up a couple of chapters in.

There's plenty of aquatic action in The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham but that book is more about not going to sea.

[Various Artist]

Ahh yes I don't believe I ever actually read Peter Duck (book 3 in the S&A series), and only read Missee Lee (book 10) once – that one is set on the South China Sea, I think, and is relatively obviously fantastical, but I don't think I necessarily grasped at the time I was reading the series (aged c.11-12) just quite how 'apart' these two books are.

The other ten of the twelve novels are fairly straightforward narratives of the various childrens' 'actual' hi-jinks and adventures on lakes, Broads, and at least once the sea, but those two are something quite else aren't they? I couldn't have understood it at that age, but they seem to be meant as Ransome's narrative retellings of the children's own imagined stories of adventures afloat – metafictional creations, or "story within a story" as you say, in other words. It seems that even as a prepubescent I couldn't really be doing with all that.