Frederick Marryat was England's most famous author in the years between Jane Austen and Charles Dickens; even more than that he was a naval hero of the Napoleonic Wars and it was his exploits in the Royal Navy during those years that formed the core of his writing. Marryat's whole life was as fantastic as anything in his books. Biographer Tom Pocock chronicles Marryat's extraordinary life with appropriate zest, leaving the modern reader to ponder on the immoderation and versatility of lives in a more uncertain age.