Customer Reviews

Peter Simple (Heart of Oak Sea Classics Series)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Frederick Marryat was a sea captain who served under the famous Lord Cochrane. This book was an inspiration to such later writers as Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forster. It is a little like Tom Jones in that it episodic, even picaresque. It is very funny in parts, in a way that O'Brian is not--you get the sense that Marryatt is weaving in incidents and characters from his own naval career. It certainly helps to have read O'Brian for a deep understanding of the culture, but with Marryat you feel at times that you are in touch with the real thing.

Another good book in the Heart of Oak series. This novel was quite the opposite of the last one in the series I read, "The Black Ship". I think both novels give good pictures of how life was on the British sailing ships but in "Peter Simple" the crew seems to have a lot of fun and good times as well as taking their work very seriously. They are able to joke around a good bit and enjoy life. This seems much more realistic to me based on my own experiences at sea. "Peter Simple" is written by an actual man of war captain from the Napoleanic era and so probably portrays a much more accurate picture of life on a British man of war than any of the other similar novels. I really liked the novel. Although some of the coincidences and the ending especially are a little too much like a "ladies romance novel" I still think O'Brian fans would enjoy this novel too. The sea battles and ship maneuvers are every bit as good as O'Brian.

I loved this book when I was 14. Since I could not read English, I did read it in Spanish. Now I am 38 and believe I can read English, even if probably Mr. Shakespeare would not "be in love" with the way I pretend to express in his language.

Peter Simple was a magnificent book, specially for someone like me, whose name in Spanish is Pedro (Peter), and after years searching for it, even in London, I found it, and I have ordered it to reread as if I were 14 years old.

Thank you,

Simply, Pedro

I first read Peter Simple in an abridged German version when I was 11.
However, I managed to find a 1895 English copy and greatly enjoy its full text. Nowhere have I found such elaborate and distinct naval terminology ever since. Captain Marryat is, as far as I know the only author who described a club-hauling of a man-of-war in full detail. His naval experiences make this novel a documentary novel also concerning life-style and other details. Such as the vivid description of France and other countries Marryat has been to. I still enjoy reading it very much. POB's books are different but as fine a pleasure to read as Marryat's Peter Simple.

Peter Simple is the tale of a young British midshipman seeking his fame and fortune on the high seas. Set during the Napoleonic wars, it offers comedy and adventure in an old-school style.

Originally released in serialized form, Peter Simple is a fun, straight-forward adventure novel. It was a best-seller in it's time (1833) and holds up beautifully. I think this will appeal to anyone who ever thrilled to the works of Rafael Sabatini, Bernard Cornwell, or Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel. It's an easy read and great fun !

For those who have enjoyed the Patrick O'Brian stories about lucky Jack Aubrey should enjoy this story. Yes, it's fiction but the author sailed with the original source of the O'brian stories, Thomas Cochrane, 10th Lord Duncannon. It's fiction but based on real life in the Royal Navy.

Peter Simple is an early novel by Captain Frederick Marryat, he who actually served during the Napoleonic Wars and under the redoubtable Lord Cochrane to boot. As such, Marryat's sea novels are replete with details of life as actually experienced by the men and officers of the time. However, Marryat's a humorist, and his goal is to tell an entertaining tale, and with Peter Simple he succeeds admirably. Fans of Patrick O'Brian will discover source material in Marryat later adapted by POB in his Aubrey/Maturin novels.

The plot of Peter Simple is rather thin; it concerns the training of a young midshipman, Peter Simple, 'the greatest fool in his family,' and how he is cheated out of his inheritance, only to eventually regain it. Along the way he meets a cast of engaging characters who tell their own stories. The results is highly discursive, but the characters are so sympathetic and their tales are so amusing that you don't mind that these digressions are not actually forwarding the plot. Chief amongst them is master's mate O'Brien who befriends the foolish young midshipman and they become bosom friends who share many adventures. Case in point, at one point they are captured by the French, escape from a French prison, then disguised as a pair of stilt-walkers, stilt-walk across France to gain their freedom. Peter, being the younger and prettier of the two, is obliged to wear the female costume. In this guise he comes face to face with the French girl he adores much to his chagrin. Readers of Aubrey/Maturin will recollect their escape across France with Jack disguised as a dancing bear. Marryat is funnier.

The adventures in Peter Simple are not impossible, merely improbable, and that's all part of the fun. Marryat has a fertile imagination that can wed a nautical adventure tale with all sorts of comic and sentimental happenings -- and I mean 'sentimental' in a good way. Marryat believes in true love and honor and happily ever after; Peter Simple is a sort of nautical fairy tale. It was my good fortune to read it immediately after Voltaire's Candide, and there is much in common between the two. Both Candide and Peter Simple are fools: naive, kind, good, generous, and woefully taken advantage of by the unscrupulous people around him, but are helped by various colorful friends who undergo adventures of their own. Candide's Dr. Pangloss was hanged by the Spanish Inquisition; Peter's friend O'Brien was murdered by brigands and buried in the sand. Pangloss owes his survival to the assistance of the doctor that intended to perform an autopsy on him; O'Brien survives thanks to having his nose trod on by a pretty girl who then digs him out.

Although there is a great deal of improbability in Peter Simple, it all derives from elements that are entirely believable in themselves. For example, when the brand new Mr Midshipman Simple reports on board, the other middies take advantage of him by charging tarts to his account. When he discovers the bill, he pays it because he's such an honorable young man that he refuses to deprive the bumboat woman of her money. He never manages to collect from the other middies, but he learns a hard lesson -- never run into debt and don't buy on credit. This tale of the tarts actually has a great many more chapters to it, with a detour through pastry shops and cheating at church, resulting in the wayward middies wearing tarts on their heads while on the quarterdeck. You may wonder how it is even possible to cheat while attending worship, but let me assure you, our middies are clever enough to figure it out.

A rambling tale, it is not the well-organized bit of literature we dignify with the name of 'novel,' which is why I gave it only four stars, but it's well worth a few hours of your time. Reading Peter Simple is like drinking in a tavern with old salts who never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

~review by M. Kei, author of The Sallee Rovers (Pirates of the Narrow Seas)

My rewiew is the above. 45 Years ago I read a danish translation, with the original drawings. I have been trying to find Captain Frederick Marryatt's works in English since.