Autobiography of a Seaman, Vol. 1 by COCHRANE, Lord Thomas

This two volume work is the autobiography of Lord Cochrane, a naval captain of the Napoleonic period. His adventures are seminal to the development of naval fiction as a genre. Marryat sailed with Cochrane, while later writers borrowed incidents from this biography for their fictions. Most notable among these is Patrick OBrian, three of whose novels have clear parallels to incidents in the life of Cochrane. This first volume covers Cochranes earlier life, during which he is most active militarily. (Introduction by Timothy Ferguson)