Poor Jack

Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848) was an English novelist, a contemporary and acquaintance of Charles Dickens, noted today as an early pioneer of the sea story. He is now known particularly for the semi-autobiographical novel Mr Midshipman Easy (1836) and his children's novel The Children of the New Forest (1847). After trying to run away to sea several times, he was permitted to enter the Royal Navy in 1806, as a midshipman on board HMS Imperieuse. In 1829 he was commanding the frigate HMS Ariadne on a mission to search for shoals around the Madeira and Canary Islands. This was an uninspiring exercise, and between that and the recent publication of his first novel, The Naval Officer (1829) he decided to resign his commission and take up writing full time.