Sea Stories Books

AUTHOR'S NOTE "Nostromo" is the most anxiously meditated of the longer novels which belong to the period following upon the publication of the "Typhoon" volume of short stories. I don't mean to say that I became then conscious of any impending change in my mentality and in my attitude towards the tasks of my writing life. And perhaps there was never any change, except in that... more...

THAT COURTEOUS PIRATE, CAPTAIN BONNETTHE year of 1718 seems very dim and far away, but the tall lad who sauntered down to the harbor of Charles Town, South Carolina, on a fine, bright morning, was much like the youngsters of this generation. His clothes were quite different, it is true, and he lived in a queer, rough world, but he detested grammar and arithmetic and loved adventure, and would have made... more...

Chapter One. The Story of the Buried Treasure. Those of my readers who happen to be well acquainted with Weymouth, will also be assuredly acquainted with a certain lane, known as Buxton’s Lane, branching off to the right from the high-road at Rodwell, and connecting that suburb with the picturesque little village of Wyke. I make this assertion with the most perfect confidence, because Buxton’s Lane... more...

My Childhood. My father—Cuthbert Lascelles—was the great painter who, under a pseudonym which I need not mention here, was a few years ago well known in the world of art, and whose works are now to be found enshrined in some of the noblest public and private collections both at home and abroad. He was a tall and singularly handsome man; with clear grey eyes, and a stern resolute-looking mouth... more...

PREFACE Deep in every heart there seems to be a longing for a more primitive existence; and though in practice it is often an illusion, the South Seas lend themselves better to such dreams than any other part of the world. There are fewer races more attractive than the Polynesians. Frank, winning, gay and extraordinarily well-mannered, the higher types are often remarkably good-looking, and scarcely... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HUCKSTER Sir Oliver Tressilian sat at his ease in the lofty dining-room of the handsome house of Penarrow, which he owed to the enterprise of his father of lamented and lamentable memory and to the skill and invention of an Italian engineer named Bagnolo who had come to England half a century ago as one of the assistants of the famous Torrigiani. This house of such a startlingly singular... more...

The Catastrophe. It happened on our seventh night out from Cape Town, when we had accomplished about a third of the distance between that city and Melbourne. The ship was the Saturn, of the well-known Planet Line of combined freight and passenger steamers trading between London, Cape Town, and Melbourne; and I—Eric Blackburn, aged a trifle over twenty-three years—was her fourth officer. The Saturn... more...

THE BLUE PAVILIONS.   TO A FORMER SCHOOLFELLOW. MY DEAR —, I will not write your name, for we have long been strangers; and I, at any rate, have no desire to renew our friendship. It is now ten years and more from the end of that summer term when we shook hands at the railway-station and went east and west with swelling hearts; and since then no report has come of you. In the meantime you may have... more...

Mount Pleasant. “Jake!” “Dat me, Mass’ Tom.” “Have you heard the gun fire yet?” “Golly, no, Mass’ Tom.” “Then you must go up the hill at once and see whether the mail steamer has been signalled or not. She ought to have been in sight by now; for, she’s been expected since early this morning, and we’re all anxious about the news from England.” “All right, Mass’ Tom, me go... more...

THE GRAIN SHIP I could not help listening to the talk at the next table, because the orchestra was quiet and the conversation unrestrained; then, too, a nautical phrasing caught my ear and aroused my attention. For I had been a lifelong student of nautical matters. A side glance showed me the speaker, a white-haired, sunburned old fellow in immaculate evening dress. With him at the table in the... more...