"What has cast such a shadow upon you?"
"The Negro."
With its intense mix of mystery, adventure, and a surprise ending, Benito Cereno at first seems merely a provocative example from the genre Herman Melville created with his early best-selling novels of the sea. However, most Melville scholars consider it his most sophisticated work, and many, such as novelist Ralph Ellison, have hailed it as the most piercing look at slavery...

Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836) is a novel by Frederick Marryat. Inspired by the author's experience as a captain in the Royal Navy, Mr. Midshipman Easy is a tale of bravery, foolishness, and the manifold reasons for men to take to the high seas. Frequently funny, often profound, Marryat's novel is an underappreciated classic of nineteenth century fiction that has been adapted twice for British cinema. "'Then, father, all I have to say is, that I swear...

From the author of the number-one international bestseller The History of Bees, a captivating story of the power of nature and the human spirit that explores the threat of a devastating worldwide drought, witnessed through the lives of a father, a daughter, and a woman who will risk her life to save the future.

"Nostromo, A Tale of the Seaboard" is set in the South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera. Charles Gould is a native...

Based on Melville's own experiences, the novel explores the fascinating and often harrowing world of a naval fighting ship, the Neversink. The ship becomes for Melville a microcosm of America itself; its hierarchy, social divisions, and cruel practices suggest larger injustices, including slavery.

Captain Blood is an adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini. The protagonist is the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, a fictional Irish physician who had had a wide-ranging career as a soldier and sailor (including a commission as a captain under the Dutch admiral De Ruyter) before settling down to practice medicine in the town of Bridgwater in Somerset. The book opens with him attending to his geraniums while the town prepares to fight for the Duke of Monmouth....

An epic of action-filled excitement. Rescued from drowning, a pampered gentlleman awakes in a special kind of hell. He's aboard the Ghost, a sealing schooner outbound for months of hunting. Wolf Larson, the devilish captain, a feindish crew, the cruel sea, and unlikely love make this tale immortal.

When David goes out on his sailboat to scatter his recently deceased uncle's ashes in the Pacific, he is caught in a fierce storm and must survive many days on his own as he works out his feelings about life and his uncle.

In seventeenth-century England, orphaned Philip Marsham, forced to flee London after a terrible accident, finds himself in an even more difficult situation when his ship is taken over by pirates and he is forced to become a member of their crew.

"A compelling, marvelous novel by the acclaimed author of Mink River Declan O Donnell has left Oregon aboard his boat, the Plover, to escape the life that's so troubled him on land. He sets course west into the Pacific in search of solitude. Instead, he finds a crew, each in search of something themselves, and what at first seems a lonely sea voyage becomes a rapturous, heartfelt celebration of life's surprising paths, planned and unplanned"-- Provided...