W Clark Russell – författare

Cuthbert Shaw and Jenny Strangfield are secretly in love. His father is a dogmatic schoolmaster, hers a severe Baptist preacher, harsh stalwarts of their small town on the Kent coast. But so convinced are Cuthbert and Jenny of their rightness for one another that they have slipped off separately to London on false pretences, and married there.

Back in Greystone, they must keep up their secret until they can summon the courage to speak to their respective despotic parents. Finally, Cuthbert determines he can wait no longer, and makes a plan with Jenny to deliver the no doubt shocking news, to her father first, one evening.

But this is 1806, and pressgangs prowl British seaside places, compelling young men into the service of the navy, to fight Napoleon's forces. As he makes his way to Jenny's home for the critical conversation, Cuthbert is taken, and disappears overnight. Jenny, unaware, waits and waits on tenterhooks. But, of course, Cuthbert never comes.

Heartbroken, thinking he may have abandoned her, Jenny despairs, and reveals their secret. But she is not believed - the story appears unfeasible, and seems a cover for shame. Her father is incandescent, and Cuthbert's outraged. How will gentle Cuthbert fare aboard ship, heading into battle? How will Jenny survive the vicious innuendo of the Greystone townspeople, let alone own father's savage accusations of bad character? Will Cuthbert ever return to her, or is he lost forever?

W. Clark Russell followed several extremely popular seafaring tales with this elegantly written novel in 1878, proving that he was much more than a novelist of adventure. The extraordinarily poetic prose and rich imagination of Auld Lang Syne confirmed that here was a writer with more than one string to his bow.

William Dampier (1651-1715) was one of the world’s true swashbucklers; not only the first Englishman to explore Australia and New Guinea, he circumnavigated the globe three times before age sixty. In this cogent biography, W. Clark Russell presents Dampier’s great adventures and vast achievements.

Second mate William Lee narrates this spellbinding tale of a captain’s madness, a woman’s devotion, a shipwreck, and a dangerous escape from an island. Of this 1880 novel—about the doomed voyage of the sailing ship Waldershare—the author maintained “There is not an incident that is not true.” Some events he depicts he experienced himself.

Jeremy Liver—a sneak, coward, and drunk—incites mutiny aboard the good ship Atlantic. A falling spar almost kills the stalwart Captain Heron, who embarks on a dangerous course after the mutineers abandon ship. Russell’s eye for authentic nautical detail grounds this 1896 tale of romance and adventure in realism. 

A shipful of husband-seeking women bound for Australia, diverted by mutineers, find themselves aground on an island in the South Seas. Can Captain Charles Morgan and his new second mate, serving-girl Alice Perry, train thirty females to raise sails for Sydney? This 1894 nautical romance-adventure is one of Russell’s best, and most original.

Walter Longmore, a young French-born midshipman, finds adventure and romance in this 1898 novel when he meets Miss Belle Stuart; together they face a series of adventures and misadventures. Russell’s experience in the British maritime service lends an air of realism to this high-seas thriller, praised by critics for its freshness, skill, and sheer inventive power.

In 1820, Captain Pope and Captain Crystal—experienced sailors, gentlemen, privateers, and rogues—set sail in search of treasure. What they find instead is a reluctant crew, slavers, sea battles, an uncooperative earl, shipwreck, romance, and death in this 1897 nautical yarn.

Mr. Royle, a young second mate aboard a British Mercantile Marine vessel, copes with the cruel Captain Coxon, his callous first mate, and a mutinous crew. A beautiful young woman rescued from a shipwreck only complicate matters, both in safety and in love. This 1877 novel, boldly subtitled "An Account of the Mutiny of the Crew and the Loss of the Ship When Trying to Make the Bermudas," was Russell’s most popular--and led to reforms in conditions aboard merchant vessels.

A wealthy sea captain’s beautiful daughter is suddenly kidnapped! The father’s frantic chase leads to a sea battle in the English Channel. Admiral Nelson himself makes a cameo in this 1906 novel, which features vivid depictions of life in an old English seaport during the era of the Napoleonic wars.

The seagoing fiction of W. Clark Russell has been compared to Poe, London, Cooper, Marryat, and William Hope Hodgson. This 1895 collection includes “Cornered!”, “A Midnight Visitor,” “The Strange Adventures of a South Seaman,” “The Adventures of Three Sailors,” “The Strange Tragedy of the ‘White Star,’” and “The Ship Seen on the Ice.”

A sailor stranded on an iceberg discovers a trapped pirate vessel, its crew encased in ice for fifty years. A campfire thaws out French corsair Jules Tassard, who offers to share his treasure before descending into murderous madness. This 1887 nautical horror yarn predates H. G. Wells’ use of suspended animation as a plot vehicle.