#frederick marryat

[marryat92]

My father was a gentleman, and a man of considerable property. In my infancy and childhood I was weak and sickly, but the favourite of my parents beyond all my brothers and sisters, because they saw that my mind was far superior to my sickly frame, and feared they should never raise me to manhood; contrary, however, to their expectations, I surmounted all these untoward appearances, and attracted much notice from my liveliness, quickness of repartee, and impudence: qualities which have been of much use to me through life.

— Frederick Marryat, Frank Mildmay (The Naval Officer).

Shipping off the Coast of Dover, Thomas Whitcombe, late 18th century (ArtUK).

[marryat92]

Frederick Marryat, portrait by John Simpson (NPG).

Frederick Marryat was born in the City of London on 10th July, in the year of the September Massacres in Paris. He died in a time of revolutions, and in the fifty-six years which lay between 1792 and 1848 the political map of the world changed more than it has ever done again, until our own time. He was a few weeks older than Shelley, and a few months older than Edward Trelawney, to whom, indeed, he was far more akin.

— Oliver Warner, Captain Marryat: a Rediscovery.

[marryat92]

Captain Marryat weighing in on the "man or bear" debate, and choosing even several hostile men over the bear:

The Indians reckon the slaying of one of these animals as a much greater feat than killing a man, and the proudest ornament they can wear is a necklace of the grizzly bear’s claws.

I for myself, must confess, that I had rather be attacked by, and take my chance with, three men than by one of these animals, as they are seldom killed by the first or even the second bullet. It requires numbers to overcome them. The largest lion, or Bengal tiger, would stand but a poor chance, if opposed to one of these animals full grown.

— Frederick Marryat, Diary in America.

[marryat92]

Why, hello there! It seems I have just had the great and remarkable pleasure of stumbling upon a Frederick Marryat blog!

To begin with, I confess that I know near to nothing about Marryat, save for that which I learned through reading (and falling in love with) "The King's Own" a few years ago. However, seeing as I have always been the only person in my circles who is at all aware of Marryat's existence, I was more than a little surprised to find an entire blog about him and his work, haha.

Anyway, I am simply here to say my warm greetings, and to express appreciation for the very existence of this Marryat-themed corner of the Internet! As to myself, I certainly plan to explore more of his writings in the future, and do some reading on the man himself.

Well, that is all from me. I wish a most pleasant day to you, dear blog creator! ^^

Thank you for this lovely message! Asks like this make my day, because I know how challenging it is to find other Marryat fans.

The King's Own is one of my personal favorites, too! It's almost like a guilty pleasure because it's a rough novel in many places (and comes crashing to an end, as you know). Willy, the tragic protagonist, is based on Captain Marryat's second son William, who died at only seven years of age. (This is according to Marryat's daughter Florence, who edited and published The Life and Letters of Captain Frederick Marryat.)

In this blog you will also find several attempts to make Marryat book recs. I highly recommend the semi-autobiographical Frank Mildmay (The Naval Officer), if you enjoyed The King's Own, and also Mr. Midshipman Easy, Poor Jack, Percival Keene, Peter Simple, and Jacob Faithful.

You are in for a real treat! Marryat himself is a deeply fascinating person, a window into the world of his era. I use the tag 'biography' for posts about Marryat's life, and quotes from his several biographers. For all of the nautical jargon in his books, I have found The Sailor's Word-Book by Admiral W.H. Smyth to be an indispensable guide. It's free on Google Books and Internet Archive.

I hope you enjoy this blog, and I'm always up for a Marryat discussion (even if it takes me awhile to respond!)

[clove-pinks]

I finished Joseph Rushbrook, or The Poacher by Frederick Marryat, originally published serially in 1841, and it's a good but very atypical work for the author. It's a rare story for adults by Marryat as a mature writer, but almost devoid of maritime themes (or Marryat butting into the narrative to go on a rant, which is a usually a feature, not a bug). In many ways it's characteristic of Marryat, such as his favorite plot device of having poor characters suddenly come into money, but it left me feeling nostalgic for his rougher early novels.

The Poacher is a short book with many twists and turns and reversals of fortune, almost Dickensian in feel, and Marryat has uncharacteristically tight control over the plot. It's so Dickensian there's a weird antisemitic bit where a Jewish woman falls in love with a rando (Christian) character, sending her relatives into a murderous rage. (I guess I should be grateful Marryat didn't feel the need to sprinkle in more antiblack racism). With a lot of aliases used by the hero and other characters, and a few Irish characters from Galway, in many ways it echoes The King's Own—but it has a much happier ending where (almost) everyone survives.

As Marryat novels go, this is one of his stronger entries in terms of objective quality, but it's not a midshipman novel, it's not autobiographical, and it doesn't draw heavily on Marryat's maritime knowledge. In other words it doesn't have much to recommend it unless you're already a Marryat fan or completist. I know that Marryat in later life actually employed a former poacher as one of his gamekeepers (which was not uncommon, akin to hiring a former computer hacker to provide IT security), but The Poacher has very little in the way of actual poaching, or commentary on the privatization of public lands.

[clove-pinks]

There's a post going around about the American vs. British pronunciation of the word "lieutenant," and once again I am fixating on this passage from Frank Mildmay, the 1829 novel by British author and naval officer Frederick Marryat:

The scene takes place during the War of 1812, and Marryat goes out of his way to emphasize that the American captain pronounces the word as "leftenant," spelling it out phonetically.

Is he trying to suggest that this is actually the pronunciation used in the United States, as opposed to the (presumably more correct) British pronunciation? It is debatable how much American accents and British accents actually differed in the early 19th century, given the considerable evidence that American and British sailors sounded very much alike.

My other thought is that Marryat is using eye dialect, to indicate that the "unpolished" American captain is not an educated man. This is a likely explanation, except that standard spellings are used for all of the American dialog, with the exception of "Leftenant."

[dannyawesome65]

yesssss my favorite ocs that aren’t originally my ocs but characters from marryats phantom ship which i grew so attached to that i basically adopted them as my own❤️‍🩹🫰🌅🏝️

[ganymedian]

You are Frank Mildmay you are 14 or something and you are getting your ass kicked (but it’s okay because you kick ass Harder)