Harry Collingwood

Under the Meteor Flag

Log of a Midshipman During the Napoleonic Wars

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

William Joseph Cosens Lancaster was the son of a Royal Navy captain and educated at the Naval College, Greenwhich. Even though he had been at sea since the age of 15, he had to abandon a career in the Royal Navy because of severe myopia which kept him from clearly seeing anything more than a few hundred yards away. Undaunted, he became a marine engineer specializing in harbor design. He also became one of the most prolific writers of nautical fiction of his day. Between 1886 and 1913 he wrote 23 nautically-related novels under the pseudonym of "Harry Collingwood"-a name he derived from his hero Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar. His most commercially successful book was The Pirate Island written in 1884; but Under the Meteor Flag, written the previous year, might be his most action-packed. It is the story of a young midshipman who, like many of Marryat's characters, is trying to make his way in the new and often incomprehensible world of the 18th Century Royal Navy. It is the story of the midshipman that Lancaster never was, but it is written by a man who literally spent his whole life dealing with the sea.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Fireship Press
• Seitenzahl: 316
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. November 2008
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 515g
• ISBN-13: 9781934757581
• ISBN-10: 1934757586
• Artikelnr.: 25561803

Autorenporträt

William Joseph Cosens Lancaster, who was born on May 23, 1843, and died on June 10, 1922, wrote over 40 adventure books for boys, most of them set on the sea. His pen name was Harry Collingwood. Collingwood was the oldest child of Captain William Lancaster (1813-1871) and Anne, née Cosens (c. 1820-9 October 1898). Lancaster was a master mariner. His birth record says he was born at Concord Place in Weymouth, Dorset, on May 23, 1843, at 9:30 a.m. In its Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, it is said that his date of birth is given as 1851 in most sources except for his birth certificate. The date he was born is given on his application to become an Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers as May 23, 1846. They had three kids, and Collingwood was the first one. His sister Ada Louise was born around 1852 and died on January 8, 1929. His sister Sarah Anne was born on June 1, 1853, and died on December 27, 1941. He was eight years old at the time of both births. There were two women in the 1871 census who worked as drapers' helpers. Collingwood's father had already died by that time, and his mother lived with her daughters until she too died. After moving out of her dad's house, Ada lived with her sister and never got married.