Behind every great sea story there is a real-life adventure that inspired it, and this book shines a new light on some of our best-loved maritime authors - from Robert Louis Stevenson to Jack London, Hemingway, Masefield and Conrad - reflecting the dangerous, exciting and often eccentric escapades that fuelled their writing.
'Write what you know.' Time-honoured advice for all writers, and followed especially closely by some of the greatest authors in maritime fiction. This book explores the dangerous, exciting and often eccentric escapades of literature's sailing stars, and how these true stories inspired and informed their best-loved works.
We find out how: - a big-game fishing trip rudely interrupted by sharks inspired one of the key scenes in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea - Robert Louis Stevenson's cruise to the South Seas in his schooner Casco encountered areas where cannibalism was still rife, and these wild and remote paradises tinged with danger went on to feature in Treasure Island - the hardship that Melville endured aboard whaling ships (he deserted one and took part in a mutiny on another, which landed him in a Tahitian jail) inspired Moby Dick - Joseph Conrad's time as a captain of a river steamer in the Congo proved instrumental in the writing of his most famous work, Heart of Darkness - John Masefield's aunt discouraged him from a writing career in favour of a seafaring one, which took him round Cape Horn and almost gave him a nervous breakdown, but left him with the inspiration for Sea Fever and novels such as One Damn Thing After Another
Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons), Erskine Childers (Riddle of the Sands), Jack London (The Sea Wolf) and many others are also featured in this fascinating, illuminating and unique look at how fact fed into fiction.
