As much as we are all fond of Hornblower, Aubrey, Ramage, Kydd and the rest, it is good from time to time to be reminded that writing about the sea doesn’t begin or end with the Georgian Navy. Some of the greatest sea battles in literature are not fought between great navies or even single ships. The greatest battle is often with sea itself. I was reminded of this when I reread a novella by Joseph Conrad with the somewhat unfortunate title - The Nigger of the Narcissus. It is, to my mind, the best writing about ships and the sea by Conrad or anyone, for that matter. Sadly, the novella rarely, if ever, gets taught these days in school. Of it Conrad wrote, “after writing the last words of that book, I understood that I had done with the sea, and that henceforth I had to be a writer.”
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