An enjoyable selection of stories with a nautical flavour, from the swash and buckle of war at sea, shipwreck and smuggling, by some of the most gifted authors in the English language, including Daniel Defoe, Jean Wyss, J. Fenimore Cooper, Captain Marryat, Victor Hugo, Charles Kingsley, R M Ballantyne, W Clarke Russell, Oscar Wilde, Gilbert Parker and Stephen Crane.