The Novels of Captain Marryat. - 1895

London: J.M. Dent, 1895-96. Finely bound set of the works of Captain Marryat, one of 750 copies printed on handmade paper. Octavo, complete in 24 volumes, bound in three quarters morocco over marbled boards, raised bands, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers, with tissue-guarded frontispieces and plates. In fine condition. Frederick Marryat was a Royal Navy officer, a novelist, and a friend of Charles Dickens. He is noted today as an early pioneer of the sea story, particularly for his semi-autobiographical novel Mr Midshipman Easy, for his children's novel The Children of the New Forest, and for a widely used system of maritime flag signalling known as Marryat's Code. From 1832 to 1835, Marryat edited The Metropolitan Magazine. Additionally, he kept producing novels; his biggest success came with Mr Midshipman Easy in 1836. He lived in Brussels for a year, traveled in Canada and the United States, then moved to London in 1839, where he was in the literary circle of Charles Dickens and others. He was in North America in 1837 when the Rebellion of that year broke out in Lower Canada, and served with the British forces in suppressing it. Marryat was named a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his invention and other achievements. In 1843, he moved to a small farm at Manor Cottage at Langham in Norfolk, where he died in 1848. His daughter Florence Marryat later became well known as a writer and actress. His son Francis Samuel Marryat completed his late novel The Little Savage. Marryat's novels are characteristic of their time, with concerns of family connections and social status often overshadowing the naval action, but they are interesting as fictional renditions of the author's 25 years' experience at sea, and were much admired by men such as Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, and Ernest Hemingway. They were among the first nautical novels, serving as models for later works by C. S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian, also set in the time of Nelson and telling of young men rising through the ranks through successes as naval officers. Along with his novels, Marryat was known for his short writings on nautical subjects. These short stories, plays, pieces of travel journalism, and essays appeared in The Metropolitan Magazine too, and were later published in book form as Olla Podrida. Marryat's 1839 Gothic novel The Phantom Ship contained The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains, which includes the first female werewolf in a short story.