Master Mariner

This is Nicholas Monsarrat’s final masterpiece, an epic tale of the sea and seafaring from the sixteenth century to near the end of the twentieth. Told from the point of view of Mathew Lawe, a young Devon sailor who is cursed after a spectacular act of cowardice to wander “the wild waters till all the seas run dry,” it is historical fiction but beset by real events. Lawe represents the spirit of maritime exploration and fortitude; his life is the thread stringing together a long history of nautical adventure. He finds himself mixed up with Drake and the Armada; a buccaneer under Sir Henry Morgan in the Caribbean; press-ganged aboard the Shannon just before her duel with the American Chesapeake, and much more! Nicholas Monsarrat died before Book II was finished. Anne Monsarrat completed the remainder of the story in Nicholas’s own words, partly from some working notes he left and partly from his original synopsis of The Master Mariner Book II. Both are included here.