Sea story
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A sea story is a work of fiction set largely at sea. The enclosed setting of life aboard a ship allows an author to portray a social world in miniature, with characters cut off from the outside world and forced to interact in cramped and stressful conditions. Themes can include differences between seamen and officers, bullying behavior, struggles against treacherous weather and sea conditions, piracy, shipwrecks, mutiny, naval activity and battles, commercial fishing, boat racing, explorations of inhospitable areas, and quite often baudy liasons with bar-girls in exotic locales.
The form has been popular from Homer's Odyssey onwards. Notable exponents of the sea story include:
- Captain Frederick Marryat (1792–1848): Peter Simple
- Herman Melville (1819–1891): Moby-Dick
- C. S. Forester (1899–1966): Horatio Hornblower series
- Nicholas Monsarrat (1910–1979): The Cruel Sea
- Patrick O'Brian (1914–2000): Aubrey–Maturin series
Sea-story periodicals include:
- The Ocean, one of the first specialized pulp magazines (March 1907 to January 1908)[1]
- Sea Stories, a Street & Smith pulp (February 1922 to June 1930)
- Sea Novel Magazine, a Frank A. Munsey pulp (2 issues, November 1940, January 1941)
- Sea Story Annual and Sea Story Anthology, 1940's Street & Smith large-size reprint pulps
- Tales of the Sea, digest (Spring 1953)
[edit] References
- ^ "Lost at Sea: The Story of The Ocean," introduction to The Ocean: 100th Anniversary Collection (Off-Trail Publications, 2008).
