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MR. MIDSHIPMAN EASY
MR. MIDSHIPMAN EASY
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE [from the Century Company edition of 1906]:
Captain Frederick Marryat, R. N., C. B., was born in Westminster, England, in 1792. The lax discipline of the private schools he attended failed to curb the uncomfortable exuberance of this boisterous youth; and several times he ran away, having become enamored of the thought of a sea life. In 1806 his father put him aboard the frigate Imptrieuse. For the next twenty-five years Marryat led an adventurous life aboard ship— adventurous even for those palmy days of privateering, slave-trading and smuggling. A gallant officer and intrepid seaman, his honours were many. In 1830 he resigned from the navy to devote himself to novel-writing, which already had resulted in the publication of his first book: "The Naval Officer, or Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay."
"Mr. Midshipman Easy," his liveliest and most popular novel, appeared in 1836. It is said to have been inspired by Don Quixote. The author pictures the hero as having been reared in the notion that all men are equal—a difficult theory consistently to uphold in the early days of the British Navy. This motif was nothing short of an inspiration; and the result is a narrative of rare humor and absorbing adventure, peopled by the jolliest lot of sea-dogs that ever trod a deck.
Marryat's books are perennially popular, because he is a born story-teller, and because his characters are real. For both incident and character he drew largely on his own experiences; and it is to the autobiographical nature of his work that one must attribute the life and vigor of his splendid stories of the sea.
***
* Includes 11 illustrations
Captain Frederick Marryat, R. N., C. B., was born in Westminster, England, in 1792. The lax discipline of the private schools he attended failed to curb the uncomfortable exuberance of this boisterous youth; and several times he ran away, having become enamored of the thought of a sea life. In 1806 his father put him aboard the frigate Imptrieuse. For the next twenty-five years Marryat led an adventurous life aboard ship— adventurous even for those palmy days of privateering, slave-trading and smuggling. A gallant officer and intrepid seaman, his honours were many. In 1830 he resigned from the navy to devote himself to novel-writing, which already had resulted in the publication of his first book: "The Naval Officer, or Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay."
"Mr. Midshipman Easy," his liveliest and most popular novel, appeared in 1836. It is said to have been inspired by Don Quixote. The author pictures the hero as having been reared in the notion that all men are equal—a difficult theory consistently to uphold in the early days of the British Navy. This motif was nothing short of an inspiration; and the result is a narrative of rare humor and absorbing adventure, peopled by the jolliest lot of sea-dogs that ever trod a deck.
Marryat's books are perennially popular, because he is a born story-teller, and because his characters are real. For both incident and character he drew largely on his own experiences; and it is to the autobiographical nature of his work that one must attribute the life and vigor of his splendid stories of the sea.
***
* Includes 11 illustrations
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