Mr. Midshipman Easy by Frederick Marryat

Captain Frederick Marryat (July 10, 1792 – August 9, 1848) was an English Royal Navy officer, novelist, and Charles Dickens' contemporary and acquaintance. He is remembered today as an early pioneer of the sea narrative. He is most known for his semi-autobiographical novel Mr Midshipman Easy and his children's book The Children of the New Forest, as well as for inventing a widely used nautical flag signaling system. Marryat was the editor of The Metropolitan Magazine from 1832 to 1835. He continued to write novels, the most famous of which being Mr Midshipman Easy, published in 1836. He spent a year in Brussels, then traveled across Canada and the United States before settling in London in 1839, where he became acquainted with Charles Dickens and others in the literary world.

He was in North America in 1837 when the Lower Canadian Rebellion erupted, and he assisted British soldiers in defeating it. In appreciation of his invention and other accomplishments, he was appointed a Member of the Royal Society. He relocated to a tiny farm in Manor Cottage, Norfolk, in 1843, and died there in 1848. Florence Marryat, his daughter, went on to become a well-known writer and actor.

Francis Samuel Marryat, his son, finished his late novel The Little Savage. Marryat's novels are evocative of their day, with concerns about family ties and social standing frequently overshadowing naval action, but they are fascinating as fictionalized accounts of the author's 25 years at sea. These were among the earliest marine novels, admired by Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemingway. These served as inspiration for C.'s later works.