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. Monsarrat follows the great captains and naval adventurers from the Artic to the South Pacific. 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; sailing with Hudson in search of the North-West passage; a buccaneer under Sir Henry Morgan in the Caribbean; assisting Samuel Pepys with his responsibilities as Secretary to the Navy; at the side of Captain Cook as he transports General Wolf to the storming of Quebec, and then on to his death in the Pacific;