Here When I Was Mawes
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Quarterdeck MARITIME LITERATURE & ART REVIEW SUMMER 2020 Compliments of McBooks Press THE DESTINATION FOR NAUTICAL FICTION www.mcbooks.com / www.rowman.com Quarterdeck MARITIME LITERATURE & ART 8 REVIEW T S C Quarterdeck is published quarterly by Tall Ships Communications 6952 Cypress Bay Drive Kalamazoo, MI 49009 269-372-4673 EDITOR & PUBLISHER George D. Jepson Contents [email protected] SUMMER 2020 ASSOCIATE EDITOR Amelia A. Yeoman INTERVIEW COLUMNS Quarterdeck is distributed by McBooks Press, an imprint of 8 J. D. DAVIES Globe Pequot 5 By George 246 Goose Lane, Suite 200 Britannia’s Victorian Royal Navy Richard Bolitho’s Clerk Guilford, CT 06437 comes alive in the Dawlish EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Chronicles George D. Jepson 14 AUTHOR’S NOTES Phone: 269-372-4673 Kydd’s Devon and Cornwall [email protected] www.mcbooks.com FEATURE by Kathy Stockwin Visit Quarterdeck and McBooks Press 18 THE ROYAL GEORGE on Facebook Roy and Lesley Adkins chronicle the sinking of the Royal Navy’s 18 greatest warship. DEPARTMENTS 4 SCUTTLEBUTT 23 BOOK REVIEWS ON THE COVER: 26 MARITIME FICTION Detail from “In a Portsmouth Fog” depicting the 74-Gun 30 MARITIME HISTORY ship Hercules in 1759, an oil-on-canvas painting by American marine artist Paul Garnett. © Paul Garnett 31 MARINE ART Tony Fernandes © Tall Ships Communications 3 | QUARTERDECK | SUMMER 2020 SCUTTLEBUTT JULIAN STOCKWIN NEW BOOK ulian Stockwin’s new Thomas Kydd naval adven- RELEASES ture, Balkan Glory, will be launched in the Unit- J ed Kingdom in October and in 2020 the United States in November. US (United States) In 1811, the Adriatic, the “French Lake,” is now UK (United Kingdom) the most valuable territory Napoleon Bonaparte pos- TPB (Trade Paperback) sesses. Captain Sir Thomas Kydd finds his glorious PB (Paperback) return to England cut short when the Admiralty sum- HB (Hardback) mons him to lead a squad- Photo by George D. Jepson. EB (Ebook) ron of frigates into these Julian Stockwin NF (Nonfiction) waters to cause havoc and distress to the enemy. JULY Kydd is dubbed “The Sea Devil” by Bonaparte who personally appoints one of his favorites, Dubourdieu, The Hooligans (USHB) along with a fleet that greatly outweighs the British, to rid by P. T. Deutermann him of this menace. AUGUST At the same time, Nicholas Renzi is sent to Austria on a secret mission to sound out the devious arch-statesman, A Furious Sky (USHB) Count Metternich. His meetings reveal a deadly plan by Eric Jay Dolin Bonaparte that threatens the whole balance of power in Europe. The only thing that can stop it is a decisive action at sea. He must some- SEPTEMBER how send a message to Kydd telling him to engage the French Adriatic fleet and “Destroy Dubourdieu.” Devil of a Fix (USTPB) Kydd faces his enemy with impossible odds stacked against him. Can he shatter by Marcus Palliser Bonaparte's dreams of breaking out of Europe and marching to the gates of India To the Eastern Seas (UKTPB) and Asia? by Julian Stockwin DAVID DONACHIE OCTOBER avid Donachie has launched the four short Balkan Glory (UKHB) stories featuring Midshipman Charles De by Julian Stockwin D Vere Wormwood in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, scion of a rich, noble, and corrupt father, a A King’s Cutter (USTPB) sailor by parental coercion rather than inclination, by Richard Woodman who could sink Nelson’s Navy on his own. “The Wormwood stories were written for amuse- A Brig of War (USTPB) ment and to be humorous, based on the certainty not by Richard Woodman all naval officers could have been brave and upright, Word of Honor (USHB) David Donachie some being completely unsuited to the role,” says by Robert N. Macomber Photo by George D. Jepson. Donachie. “Charles Wormwood is such a per- son.” NOVEMBER All four stories – All at Sea, The Hero’s Curse, A Fleet to Command, and The Corsican Sisters are By Force of Arms (USTPB) available in individual ebook editions. by James L. Nelson The entire collection is also available in a trade paperback edition entitled The Maddest Idea (USTPB) Midshipman Wormwood Goes to by James L. Nelson War (see page 27). 4 | QUARTERDECK | SUMMER 2020 By George! ICHARD OLITHO’S R Clerk B n 1966, English novelist Kent. His books were published in Douglas Reeman took up a 19 countries and sold more than year-long residence in Portloe, 33 million copies. a small fishing village and an- Once, he told me that he con- Icient smugglers’ lair on the Roseland sidered himself to be Richard Bo- Peninsula along Cornwall’s rugged litho’s secretary – or clerk – Channel coast. reporting what happened in his Over several months, he steeped character’s life. himself in the Cornish culture, lan- To Glory We Steer, and Richard guage, and history, preparing to write Bolitho came along at a time of a new naval adventure introducing transition in naval fiction. C. S. Captain Richard Bolitho of His Maj- Forester’s death in March 1966 esty’s Royal Navy during the Age of left a significant gap in the genre. Fighting Sail. The Hornblower novels stood vir- To Glory We Steer was published tually alone in the genre, begin- in 1968 under Reeman’s pen name, ning in 1937 with the publication Alexander Kent, to acclaim on both of The Happy Return. sides of the Atlantic, and was “the Photo Reeman. by Kimberley By the mid-1960’s, Reeman beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Douglas Reeman on the cliffs above Portloe was an established novelist with his to quote Humphrey Bogart’s final Second World War naval adven- line to Claude Rains in the film Casablanca. tures, harboring a desire to write about the “It is a splendid yarn, and the hero is a wor- Royal Navy under sail. thy successor to Hornblower,” said The Daily “I’d thought about it for years, not as a series Telegraph in London. The New York Times but as a single book,” he told me in 2008, the Book Review opined, “Had George III a few year in which he celebrated half a century as a more like Capt. Richard Bolitho, commander published author. “It was very difficult in those of the frigate Phalarope, the American Revolu- days because everybody thought of it as C. S. tion might have worked out as well as the Bay Forester’s territory. It had appealed to me since of Pigs.” I was eleven years old and was taken on board Over the next half-century and beyond, HMS Victory by my grandfather. new releases in the Bolitho canon were pe- “I was encouraged by my American pub- rennial top-ten best-sellers around lisher Walter Minton to start the series, the world, often reaching number because he said, ‘You’re always talking one. Not infrequently, Reeman about Nelson and that period. had two titles competing on the Why don’t you write about it?’ same lists, one by Alexander Kent Val Biro and then he said, ‘What are we and another under his name. going to call this guy?’ I said, During his career, Reeman authored 37 nov- ‘Richard Bolitho,’ immediately because that els as himself and another 28 as Alexander was the name of the army captain I’d met † 5 | QUARTERDECK | SUMMER 2020 © Alamy ABOVE Portloe, the small some years before in Gorey, Jer- fishing village that once sey, when I was looking for a harbored smuggling opera- tions along Cornwall’s berth for my boat. He was the south coast on the English brother of the then Lord Lieu- Channel. RIGHT The “big tenant of Cornwall, and he did grey house” on which the live to know he’d given his Bolitho family home was based, and in the novels name to our hero. I think he sits just below Pendennis was quite chuffed about it.” Castle at Falmouth, over- Once settled in Portloe, Ree- looking Carrick Roads. man set about developing the background in Richard Bolitho’s life. “I knew he would be a Cornishman,” he revealed during an in- Photo courtesy of Kimberley Reeman. terview for Quarterdeck in 2005. “I’ve always loved Cornwall and felt stones between Falmouth, Fowey, and St close to it, used to go there when I was Mawes. a child, liked the mystique of the place, “The big grey house is not in Falmouth, of the beauty, the language, and the fact course, as a lot of people have discovered that so many great seamen came from who’ve gone looking for it. It’s inland, in a Cornwall. It was inevitable. small village. I saw it when I was planning the “It seemed Falmouth was the place first book, and I knew that was it, so I moved [for Bolitho’s home], situated on the the house in my mind to Falmouth.” River Fal. I fell in love with it. Most of Reeman loosely based Richard Bolitho on the names of Richard Bolitho’s first Admiral Augustus Keppel (1725 – 1786), a ship’s company come from grave- Royal Navy officer and politician, according † 6 | QUARTERDECK | SUMMER 2020 PD - Art Image courtesy of Kimberley Reeman. to Kim, who was her husband’s literary partner ABOVE LEFT Augustus meditative look at it. for over 30 years. “Douglas admired his integri- Keppel as a young offi- “I said, knowing his critical eye: ‘Is it good?’ ty, courage, empathy, and officer-like quali- cer in 1749, portrayed Meaning, ‘technically accurate,’ and he said qui- by English artist Joshua ties,” she explained. “He said Keppel ‘was made etly, ‘Yes. It’s good. It’s very, very good.’ He Reynolds. The painting of steel, with the quiet qualities of a hero.’” was completed on the liked the quality of the light, and the two vessels Those same traits describe Richard Bolitho.