English

Masterman Ready

This book is one of the most well known in English literature, having been written by Marryat in his later phase, when he wrote mostly for children. The Seagrave family (how aptly named) are on a stout ship en route for Australia. In a storm the ship is struck by lightning, set on fire, and dismasted. The crew make off in the ship's boats. and the family are abandoned on board the sinking ship, along with an elderly seaman, Masterman Ready. But she doesn't sink, instead drifting to the shelter of an uninhabited island, where they scramble ashore, and set up a habitation. How they get on, what ordeals they have to endure, and how they are eventually rescued, is the substance of the book. Frederick Marryat was born in Great George Street, Westminster, London on 10th July 1792. His father, Joseph Marryat, was descended from Huguenots who had taken refuge in England following the St. Bartholemew’s Day massacres in 1572, two centuries previously, and his mother was an American from Boston, with the maiden name of Geyer. Frederick's grandfather was Dr. Thomas Marryat, an extremely eccentric physician, who had died, impoverished, in Bristol just before Frederick's birth. Frederick's fathe

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