Books about boats. Victorian boats.

November 7, 2010 11:41 AM

Please recommend maritime novels and movies set in the late Victorian era.
posted by Hoenikker to Writing & Language (19 answers total)

Early Victorian, but still might be of interest - Two Years Before the Mast
posted by blaneyphoto at 12:00 PM on November 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Slightly after the Victorian era: Jack London, The Sea Wolf
posted by Kevin S at 12:16 PM on November 7, 2010

Also a little earlier than your focus, but Sea of Poppies is great fun and boaty.
posted by Corvid at 12:20 PM on November 7, 2010

Kipling, Captains Courageous.
posted by XMLicious at 12:26 PM on November 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

Neither novel nor movie, but worthwhile the same: The Onedin Line, a sprawling BBC epic.
posted by Iridic at 12:27 PM on November 7, 2010

Slightly post-Victorian, non-fiction, and about river boating: Through Siberia, Land of The Future by Norwegian adventurer-scientist-statesman Frijtof Nansen.
posted by XMLicious at 12:37 PM on November 7, 2010

Moby Dick probably qualifies as mid-Victorian, right?

The Voyage by Philip Caputo
posted by blaneyphoto at 12:45 PM on November 7, 2010

Conrad.
posted by paduasoy at 12:46 PM on November 7, 2010

Best answer: Perhaps the novels of William Clark Russell? Read The Wreck of the 'Grosvenor' online, thanks to Archive.org.
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:49 PM on November 7, 2010

2nd Two Years Before The Mast.
posted by freshwater at 1:55 PM on November 7, 2010

Moby Dick
posted by Biru at 1:57 PM on November 7, 2010

So these aren't quite right in period--one is early C19th, the other 1857--and I haven't yet read them either. But, on the off chance that you're interested, the following are said to be excellent:

William Golding, To the ends of the earth trilogy. Wikipedia entry.

Matthew Kneale, English Passengers.

And obviously, Cloud Atlas gets mentioned in every books thread on AskMe. But it's at least partly appropriate here, unless the C19th boat sequences are from earlier than I thought.
posted by lapsangsouchong at 2:23 PM on November 7, 2010

nthing Moby.
posted by effluvia at 3:01 PM on November 7, 2010

Treasure Island.
posted by rongorongo at 3:09 PM on November 7, 2010

Sailing Alone Around the World is a memoir of Josha Slocum's solo circumnavigation of the globe between 1895 and 1897.
posted by kovacs at 3:22 PM on November 7, 2010

Treasure Island. posted by rongorongo

Published in the late Victorian era, but not SET in the Victorian era at all - at least a hundred years earlier, if I recall correctly.
posted by blaneyphoto at 4:03 PM on November 7, 2010

Can't keep silent when two of my favorite books of all time, one fiction and one non-fiction, are mentioned in the same brief thread: Moby Dick and Sailing Alone Around the World.
If you love life and literature, read 'em both.
posted by fivesavagepalms at 4:33 PM on November 7, 2010

The Terror might work for you, though it's more mid-victorian and the boats are mostly stuck in ice.
posted by Artw at 1:15 PM on November 8, 2010

You might be interested in "Fatal Passage" about John Rae. Rae, is (probably) the person who discovered the Northwest Passage. He also found the remains of the doomed Franklin expedition which had set out to do the same thing. He made a number of enemies in high places within the British Victorian establishment (who were not keen on hearing that the expedition members had resorted to cannibalism) which probably explains why he is not better known.

And re Treasure Island: thanks I stand corrected. But you can read about the author's family history in "The Lighthouse Stevensons" (many of the most famous lighthouses around the UK were build by Robert Louis Stevenson's forebears).
posted by rongorongo at 11:48 AM on November 11, 2010