A nineteenth-century tale of life aboard a New England whaling ship whose captain is obsessed with the pursuit of a large white whale.

The Sea-Wolf (1904) is an adventure novel by American writer Jack London. Inspired by his acquaintance Captain Alex MacLean, a sailor from the Pacific Northwest, London sought to write a novel of the high seas with psychological and philosophical underpinnings. An intelligent scholar named Humphrey van Weyden boards a ferry in San Francisco. Lost in the fog, the Martinez collides with another ship, and van Weyden is tossed overboard. Afloat in the...

Captain Blood is an adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini. The protagonist is the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, a fictional Irish physician who had had a wide-ranging career as a soldier and sailor (including a commission as a captain under the Dutch admiral De Ruyter) before settling down to practice medicine in the town of Bridgwater in Somerset. The book opens with him attending to his geraniums while the town prepares to fight for the Duke of Monmouth....

Peter Willems is down on his luck. The Dutch clerk has been fired for embezzlement from his job in the Indonesian port city of Makassar, and his scornful wife has abandoned him. Willems' despair lifts after an encounter with Tom Lingard, a sea captain who operates a remote trading post. Lingard hires the drifter to act as his agent, entrusting Willems with knowledge of the secret route across dangerous waters to the post. Once installed in his new...

Almayer, an immigrant living on the Malayan continent with his native wife and his daughter, Nina, dreams of riches, and so pursues hidden gold mines and begins construction on a mansion to impress the British forces that he believes are coming to conquer the region. However, none of Almayer's schemes come through for him, and his recklessness results in a desperate situation for him and his family. Almayer's Folly was Joseph Conrad's first novel....

One of the first books published after the tragic loss of the Titanic, The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters is a detailed account of the events the night of April 14-15, 1912, and how the tragic loss of life could have been averted. The largest ocean liner of her time, Titanic was on her maiden voyage when she struck an iceberg and sank in the frigid North Atlantic, taking more than 1,500 passengers and crew with her. The Sinking of...

"Elmore Leonard is in a class of one....The greatest crime writer who ever lived."
—Dennis Lehane

"Elmore Leonard is our greatest crime novelist...the best in the business."
—Washington Post

44 novels and still going strong! The incomparable Elmore Leonard—"The reigning King Daddy of crime writers" (Seattle Times)—is back with Djibouti, a gripping, twisting, playful, and always

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The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is a tale of one man's resilience and resourcefulness in the face of extraordinary challenges. The story begins with Robinson Crusoe's decision to defy his father's wishes and set out to sea. His adventurous spirit leads him through a series of misadventures, including being shipwrecked on a deserted island. Alone on the island, Crusoe must navigate the harsh realities of survival. He learns to secure food,...

The Waif Of The "Cynthia", synopsis: The plot revolved around a dark-haired boy called Erik in a family of blond Norwegians. He was discovered by them in the sea as a baby tied to a ship's buoy. There is however something wrong with him: he has not all the characteristic physical traits of the Scandinavian peoples. He has all the appearance of a Celtic. Dr. Schwaryencrona takes him under his wing and ends up discovering that Erik was adopted by a...

This isn't the story of an old man's death, but rather his decision to live.
Condemned to spend his "Golden Years" cooped up in Sunset Nursing Home, 84-year-old Charlie Lambert simply refuses this ending for himself. With the help of an old buddy in Maine, Charlie plans to go AWOL—permanently. He'll buy a boat and hit the high seas, where he will happily live out the remainder of his life on his own terms.
Nothing ever goes quite...