Wenlock

Every time I visit my local bookshop it seems that there is a whole new series of novels set amidst the 18th and early 19th Century Navy.

Obviously C S Forester's Hornblower novels and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books have been there for a while. The recent BBC adaptation has brought William Golding's Sea Trilogy back onto the shelves, but there is more.

I must have missed Richard Woodman's Nathaniel Drinkwater books when they first appeared in the 1980s, but they are now back, in omnibus form - five volumes containing fourteen novels and two short stories. Hot off the press comes Julian Stockwin's Thomas Kydd series, which is currently at six books. Another writer who has appeared on the shelves recently is James Nelson, who has written five novels set aboard the fledgling US Navy, and others with a naval setting earlier in the 18th Century. Jonathan Lunn has also written a series of five novels featuring the adventures of Lieutenant Killigrew in the early Victorian Navy. And finally I came across the first two Martin Jerrold books by Edwin Thomas, described as "the nautical Flashman."

I was considering some naval activity for Lady Cardington's Folly; or, the Limehouse Leviathan, which is the planned sequel to my current work in progress, but with the field so full already I think that I will keep the action firmly in harbour.