Marryat loved children and knew how to tell stories that they could like and understand. This to-day is undisputed. But that he is equally a novelist for the critical sorely needs reaffirmation. His juvenile public has been more faithful to him than that of maturer years, and one can only hope that time will restore him to the affection of the adult. Masterman Ready is as fresh to-day as when, eighty years ago, it first appeared; but the freshness is due as much to Marryat as to his youthful admirers, and that same freshness is no less present in the best of his other books than it is in this children's classic. Let the modern novel reader have no fear. In taking up Japhet, or Peter Simple, or A Pacha of Many Tales, he will take up a fine book and good literature, and not merely a poker with which to rake among the ashes of his own vanished childhood.
BIOGRAPHY
Two books have appeared dealing with the life and work of Frederick Marryat:
LIFE AND LETTERS OF CAPTAIN MARRYAT. By Florence Marryat. 2 vols. London: Bentley, 1872.
Like so many loyal and affectionate biographers, Mrs. Ross Church is too casual a user of dates and too summary an adherent to chronology to allow to her book great reference value.
LIFE OF FREDERICK MARRYAT. By David Hannay. London: Walter Scott. 1889.
This is an admirable little book so far as the main text is concerned. Its bibliography, however, although valuable for the list given of biographical and critical articles devoted to Marryat, as well as for facts regarding subsequent editions of Marryat's works, is very unreliable as an authority on first editions.
I.—EDITIONES PRINCIPES
FICTION, ESSAYS, NAVAL TECHNICAL BOOKS
1817
A CODE OF SIGNALS FOR THE USE OF VESSELS EMPLOYED IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE. By Captain Marryat, R.N. Dedicated to the Committee of the Association of Shipowners of the Port of London. London: J. M. Richardson, 23 Cornhill. 1817. 1 vol. Royal 8vo (6⅛ × 9¾). No pagination, the book consisting wholly of tabulated code. Frontispiece, folding plate, and one full-page plate in colours. Paper boards, paper label on side only, printed in black. White end-papers.