These books are in the form of PDFs. They are printable and searchable. They have been digitised by scanning nineteenth century or early twentieth century copies of the books. These original scans are also available in the Internet Archive. To make them more readable we have omitted the images, which can be seen, if desired, with the original scans in the Internet Archive. Books dated later than 1922 may not be viewed from within the USA.

Many books of the period up to 1922 were originally published in serial form, usually in weekly instalments. Such books might be put into book form for the first time several years after the author's death.

Frederick Marryat was born in Great George Street, Westminster, London on 10th July 1792. His father, Joseph Marryat, was descended from Huguenots who had taken refuge in England following the St. Bartholemew’s Day massacres in 1572, two centuries previously, and his mother was an American from Boston, with the maiden name of Geyer. Frederick's grandfather was Dr. Thomas Marryat, an extremely eccentric physician, who had died, impoverished, in Bristol just before Frederick's birth.

Frederick's father Joseph, however, was very wealthy, partly by inheritance and marriage, and partly by his own endeavours. He was a Member of Parliament for Sandwich, the Chairman of Lloyd's, and Agent for Grenada in the West Indies. They lived in Wimbledon, and sent their second son – Frederick – to Mr. Freeman's private school at Ponders End, now a district of North London.

Frederick was very interested in the sea, and tried several times to run away to it. He relates in “The King's Own” how impresssed he was with Nelson's State funeral in 1806. In September of that year he joined the frigate Imperieuse, 38 guns, as a midshipman, where Lord Cochrane, later Earl of Dundonald, was Captain. During his time in Imperieuse the young Marryat saw a great deal of action, which is told more fully in an article by Mike Phillips. This period ended with an attack led by Lord Chatham on Antwerp which failed; Marryat caught a malarial fever from the marsh air, which affected his lungs, and which subsequently was to make him seriously ill on a number of occasions.

In 1818 he invented a Lifeboat, for which he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Humane Society.

About this time he wrote articles suggesting that the Navy could find a better way than impressment for recruiting its men, but these were badly received.

In January 1819 he married Catharine, second daughter of Sir Stephen Shairp, for many years Consul-General in Russia. They had four sons and seven daughters, but three of the sons died before Frederick did, and the last one died young in 1855.

He resigned from the Navy on the grounds of "private affairs" in 1830. He had already completed the manuscript of "The King's Own," and he now wrote and published "The Naval Officer, or Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay," for which he was well paid, and which launched his literary career.

In 1830 he exchanged Sussex House, Hammersmith, for a property of a thousand acres at Langham near Blakeney in North Norfolk. This property was an expensive one to maintain, but he retained it till his death, and was buried just near the west door of Langham church.

Marryat enjoyed an expensive style of life, travelling between London, Brighton – the centre of Regency Buck Society – and Langham. He also stayed for a year or so in Brussels, and travelled extensively in America during 1837-38. He finally settled at Langham in 1843, where he died on 8th August 1848.