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Nautical Fiction

Nautical fiction is about as close to sailing the high seas as you can get these days. If that sounds a little depressing, remember that real sailors had to contend with all manner of disease, loneliness, bugs, pirates (who were not fun and not glamorous), shipwrecks, storms, mutiny, madness, poor (or non-existent) sanitation, frequent injury....basically, really bad stuff was lurking behind every coil of rope or powder keg, sometimes in them.

From that perspective, living vicariously through Horatio Hornblower, Jack Aubrey, Fletcher Christian, Ishmael, and Nathaniel Bowditch seems like a pretty great alternative. The fact that many of those characters were the inventions of seafaring men who knew what it was like out there on the blue and harsh ocean simply makes these stories all the more believable and fascinating.

It's usually not a good idea for writers to clutter their fiction with jargon—it can distract us from the narrative, frustrate us because we don't know exactly what's going on, or slow us down because we have to look up every other word. Stories about sailors, ships and the sea, however, need the technical terminology to help establish the authentic atmosphere, and in most cases it does exactly that whether you know the terms or not.

These are some of our favorite books at Exodus. Sailing maintains a romantic appeal that steamships and automated consoles have failed to render obsolete, and these writers give us exactly the elements we want: the danger, the fear, the glory. If you've got enough imagination to imagine running away and serving as cabin boy aboard a man o' war, you've got enough to imagine similar adventures on these pages.

Some of the best writers of all time wrote sea stories. Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville—men whose love of words enabled them to transcribe their love of the water for generations to come. As long as they're read, the creaking of masts and the crack of sails will remind us of the days before man believed he'd mastered the sea, when the sea clearly still mastered him.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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106 Items found Print
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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Windermere Readers #19
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen with a frontispiece by Milo Winter
1956 printing from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (2 in stock)
21
Aubrey/Maturin #21
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
Hornblower Series #11
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$18.99 $10.00 (1 in stock)
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
Hornblower Series #11
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
African Queen
by C. S. Forester
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
And the Ocean Was Our Sky
by Patrick Ness
from HarperTeen
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$19.99
Beat to Quarters
Hornblower Series #6
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$18.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Billy Budd
Signet Classics
by Herman Melville
from Signet Classics
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories
by Herman Melville
from Bantam Books
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Blue at the Mizzen
Aubrey/Maturin #20
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Bounty Mutiny
Penguin Classics
by William Bligh & Edward Christian
from Penguin Classics
Historical Non-fiction for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Bounty Trilogy
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$53.52
Bounty Trilogy
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$29.99
Bounty Trilogy (Wyeth Edition)
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
from Back Bay Books
for 10th-Adult
1952 Pulitzer Prize Winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Caine Mutiny
International Collectors Library
by Herman Wouk
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk, illustrated by John Thompson
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Captain Blood
Penguin Classics
by Rafael Sabatini
from Penguin Classics
Historical Romance for 7th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00
Catriona (David Balfour)
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from Living Book Press
for 9th-Adult
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$11.95
Commodore
Aubrey/Maturin #17
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Commodore Hornblower
Hornblower Series #9
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$18.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Cruise of the Arctic Star
by Scott O'Dell
from Beautiful Feet Books
for 6th-Adult
in Action & Adventure Stories (Location: FIC-ADV)
$13.95
Deep Water Days
by Oliver G. Swan
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Desolation Island
Aubrey/Maturin #5
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Doctor Dogbody's Leg
by James Norman Hall, illustrated by Warren Chappell
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Faery Lands of the South Seas
by James Norman Hall and Charles Bernard Nordhoff, illustrated by George A. Picken
from Harper & Brothers
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Far Lands
by James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Far Side of the World
Aubrey/Maturin #10
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Far Side of the World
Aubrey/Maturin #10
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Flying Colours
Hornblower Series #8
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$16.99 $10.00 (2 in stock)
Fortune of War
Aubrey/Maturin #6
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Golden Ocean
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
H. M. S. Surprise
Aubrey/Maturin #3
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
H.M.S. Surprise
Aubrey/Maturin #3
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Horatio Hornblower Saga - Complete Collection
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Historical Fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$163.89
Hornblower and the Atropos
Hornblower Series #5
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$16.99
Hornblower and the Hotspur
Hornblower Series #3
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$19.99
Hornblower Companion
by C. S. Forester
from US Naval Institute Press
for 8th-12th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Hornblower Companion
by C. S. Forester
from Bonanza Publishing
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Hornblower During the Crisis
Hornblower Series #4
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$17.99
Hundred Days
Aubrey/Maturin #19
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Hundred Days
Aubrey/Maturin #19
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Ionian Mission
Aubrey/Maturin #8
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Jack Nastyface
by William Robinson
from US Naval Institute Press
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Letter of Marque
Aubrey/Maturin #12
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Lieutenant Hornblower
Hornblower Series #2
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$18.99
Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower
by C. S. Forester (based on the works of), C. Northcote Parkinson
from Sutton Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Lobscouse and Spotted Dog
by Anne Grossman & Lisa Grossman Thomas
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Cookbook for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.95
Lord Hornblower
Hornblower Series #10
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$18.99 $9.00 (2 in stock)
Lord Hornblower
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad, illustrated by Lynd Ward
from Easton Press
for 10th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
Lost Island
by James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Master and Commander
Aubrey/Maturin #1
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Master and Commander
Aubrey/Maturin #1
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Mauritius Command
Aubrey/Maturin #4
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Men Against the Sea
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$21.99 $11.00 (1 in stock)
Men Against the Sea
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Men O'War: Stories from the Glory Days of Sail
by Mike Ashley, editor
from Castle Books
for 10th-Adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Midshipman Bolitho
by Alexander Kent
from McBooks Press
for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Moby-Dick
Signet Classics
by Herman Melville
from Signet Classics
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.95
Moby-Dick
Everyman's Library
by Herman Melville
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$32.00
Moby-Dick
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Herman Melville
from Reader's Digest
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
from Penguin Putnam
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Moby-Dick
Macmillan Classics
by Herman Melville, illustrated by Robert Shore
from Macmillan
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Moby-Dick
Calla Editions
by Herman Melville
from Dover Publications
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville
from Franklin Library
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Moby-Dick
Modern Library
by Herman Melville
from Modern Library
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Moby-Dick
by Herman Melville, illustrated by Boardman Robinson
from Easton Press
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
Moby-Dick (abridged)
International Collector's Library
by Herman Melville
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
Hornblower Series #1
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 8th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$18.99
Mutiny on the Bounty
by Charles Nordhoff & James Normal Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Mutiny on the Bounty
by Charles Nordhoff & James Normal Hall
Book Club Edition from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Rene Clarke
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Nutmeg of Consolation
Aubrey/Maturin #14
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Pitcairn's Island
by Charles Nordhoff & James Normal Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$21.99
Pitcairn's Island
by Charles Nordhoff & James Normal Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Post Captain
Aubrey/Maturin #2
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Reverse of the Medal
Aubrey/Maturin #11
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Sea of Words
by Dean King, John B. Hattendorf & J. Worth Estes
3rd edition from Henry Holt and Company
Nautical Dictionary for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$17.00 $11.00 (1 in stock)
Ship of the Line
Hornblower Series #7
by C. S. Forester
from Little, Brown & Company
Nautical fiction for 10th-Adult
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$18.99 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Surgeon's Mate
Aubrey/Maturin #7
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
The Hurricane
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
The Truelove
Aubrey/Maturin #15
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Thirteen Gun Salute
Aubrey/Maturin #13
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Treason's Harbour
Aubrey/Maturin #9
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne, illustrated by Milo Winter
from Barnes & Noble
for 10th-Adult
in Science Fiction (Location: FIC-SCI)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen and illustrated by Joseph Ciardiello
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne, translated by Lewis Page Mercier, with essays by Matthew Booth and David Stuart Davis
from Worth Press
for 10th-Adult
in Science Fiction (Location: FIC-SCI)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Windermere Series 2 (Cover 1)
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen and illustrated by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Windermere Series 2 (Cover 2)
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen and illustrated by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Windermere Series 3
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen and illustrated by Milo Winter
from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Windermere Series 4
by Jules Verne, translated by Philip Schuyler Allen
1935 Edition from Rand McNally
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by H.A. Mueller
from Heritage Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Two Years Before the Mast
Rainbow Classics
by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by Alexander Dobkin
from World Publishing Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, with period illustrations and a biographical sketch by H.W.L. Dana
from Dodd, Mead & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by Robert Frankenberg
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
12
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