A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story

Harry Collingwood

Summary

In "A Middy of the Slave Squadron," Harry Collingwood immerses the reader in the thrilling life of maritime adventure during the 19th century. This novel is rich in vivid descriptions of naval warfare and the moral complexities surrounding the British Royal Navy's anti-slavery operations. Collingwood's prose reflects a blend of nautical realism and romanticism, unraveling a gripping narrative that highlights the protagonist's trials and tribulations while capturing the ethos of a maritime society grappling with the abolitionist movement. The novel not only serves as an engrossing tale of courage and duty but also engages with the historical context of naval operations against slavery, making it a poignant piece of its time. Harry Collingwood, an English author and naval officer, drew upon his extensive maritime experiences to craft this novel, infusing it with authenticity and detail. His own ties to the sea and the ethical dilemmas he encountered as a sailor likely influenced his portrayal of the tensions between duty to the crown and the moral imperatives of the abolitionist cause. Throughout his career, Collingwood sought to illuminate the maritime world, using his knowledge to educate and entertain the public. Readers seeking a compelling blend of adventure and ethical inquiry will find "A Middy of the Slave Squadron" a rewarding exploration of naval heroism against a backdrop of moral conflict. Collingwood's engaging narrative invites readers into a vivid historical landscape that encourages reflection on the complexities of freedom and duty.

Available since: 08/22/2023.

Print length: 246 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Dearest Millie - A REGENCY NOVELLA

May McGoldrick, Jan Coffey

A PENNINGTON FAMILY NOVELLA
Lady Millie, youngest of the Pennington family, has always lived in the shadow of her talented and powerful siblings. She's been the rock of stability and order for her sisters and brothers. Her future looks bright until fate deals her a tragic hand.
Dermot McKendry is a former surgeon in the Royal Navy who has returned to his home in the Highlands to open a hospital. As disorganized as he is passionate, he is a man with wounds and a secret past he has worked a lifetime to hide.
Providence brings them together, but their future may lie beyond redemption. Dearest Millie is a poignant tale of two lovers, life's calamities, and the healing power of the human heart.

Show book

The Weeds

Katy Simpson Smith

A Mississippi woman pushes through the ruin of the Roman Colosseum, searching for plants. She has escaped her life, apprenticed herself to catalog all the species growing in this place. Crawling along the stones, she wonders how she has landed here, a reluctant botanist amid a snarl of tourists in comfortable sandals. She hunts for a scientific agenda and a direction of her own. In 1854, a woman pushes through the jungle of the Roman Colosseum, searching for plants. As punishment for her misbehavior, she has been indentured to the English botanist Richard Deakin, for whom she will compile a flora. She is a thief, and she must find new ways to use her hands. If only the woman she loves weren’t on a boat, with a husband. But love isn’t always possible. She logs 420 species. Through a list of seemingly minor plants and their uses?medical, agricultural, culinary?these women calculate intangible threats: a changing climate, the cost of knowledge, and the ways repeated violence can upend women’s lives. They must forge their own small acts of defiance and slip through whatever cracks they find. How can anyone survive? Lush, intoxicating, and teeming with mischief, The Weeds is a tense, mesmerizing page-turner about science and survival, the roles women are given and have taken from them, and the lives they make for themselves.

Show book

Top 10 Short Stories The - Born...

Herman Melville, Henry James,...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

The Big Apple is rightly lauded as the place that if you can make it there you make it anywhere. It’s good advice for a writer. Many of these literary talents became world-wide behemoths, serving up their experiences and characters to a wide-eyed audience forever in their thrall. Genius has many names.

1 - The Top 10 - Born in New York - An Introduction
2 - The Great Good Place by Henry James
3 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 1 by Herman Melville
4 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 2 by Herman Melville
5 - The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving
6 - The Fullness of Life by Edith Wharton
7 - The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte
8 - Christmas Eve in War Times by Edward Payson Roe
9 - An Angel in Disguise by T S Arthur
10 - The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
11 - The Mysterious Card by Cleveland Moffet
12 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 1 by Robert W Chambers
13 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 2 by Robert W Chambers

Show book

Guardian of the Dawn

Richard Zimler

'powerful' Booklist
'riveting' Publishers Weekly
'[Zimler is] a master craftsman, and this book is Art… a riveting murder mystery… spectacular' India Today
After his Jewish family fled the Catholic Inquisition in Portugal, Tiago Zarco lives a tranquil existence in colonial India, enjoying secret sojourns with his sister into the heady festivities of the local Hindu culture while evading the ruling Portuguese authorities.
But as he comes of age in sixteenth-century Goa, Ti struggles to keep the far-reaching influence of the Inquisition from destroying his family and pulling him apart from the Hindu girl he loves. And when an act of betrayal sees his father imprisoned, he is forced to hunt down the traitor and make an unimaginable choice, triggering a harrowing journey that will show him the depths of human depravity and the poisonous salvation of revenge.
At once passionate, furious and hopeful, Guardian of the Dawn is both a saga of horrifying religious persecution and a riveting, tender multicultural love story.
'Richard Zimler's style is so limpid and encompassing that you begin to find your bearings in 16th-century Portuguese-occupied Goa faster than you may have thought possible.' The Guardian
'remarkable' Times Literary Supplement
'An exciting adventure story' The Independent

Show book

Viper in the Nest

Georgina Clarke

London's streets are sinister. But what if the real danger lies closer to home? 
 
London, June 1759. When a charmless civil servant takes his own life, few are interested in his death. But Lizzie Hardwicke, who plies her trade in the brothels of London whilst also working as an undercover sleuth for the magistrate, can see no reason why a man who had everything to look forward to would wish to end his life. 
 
Lizzie's search for answers takes her from the smoke-filled rooms of fashionable gambling houses, where politicians mix ambition with pleasure, to the violent streets of Soho, ready to erupt with riots in the sultry summer heat. All the while, she is navigating her complicated feelings for the magistrate's trusted assistant, Will Davenport, and a disturbing situation at home. 
 
Then a gambling house owner is brutally murdered, and Lizzie finds herself tangled in a chaos that she cannot control. The darkest of secrets threatens to turn Davenport against her forever; its exposure will send her to the gallows. 
 
The third instalment of the gripping and vividly imagined historical mystery series set in 18th century London.

Show book

The Sandstone City

Elaine Canning

Eighty-eight-year-old Michael Doherty lies in an open coffin, listening to those who have come to pay their respects. Despite his dead son Cormac's protests, he's not yet ready to pass over. His granddaughter is the reason. Twenty-something Sarah has inexplicably abandoned her plans to settle in Spain and returned home deeply scarred by the Sandstone City, and he needs to know why.
He is granted a special grace period of forty days. Forty days to discover and heal his granddaughter's trauma. Forty days to face his own past. Forty days to find peace before he must make his final departure.
But Michael and Sarah are not alone. Ghosts populate the streets of Salamanca and they have a message for Sarah.
Set between modern-day Belfast and the Spanish Civil War, The Sandstone City is a story about the decisions we make, the choices denied us, and how we navigate what's left.

Show book