From his earliest publications, Henry Major Tomlinson has been cast by his critics as an adventure writer of seafaring novels. Four of his seven novels are either set on ships or strongly reflect life on sailing vessels. The remaining three are historical novels. Tomlinson's abiding fascination with the sea and with seafaring history, an interest traceable both to his family background and to his early work as clerk in a shipping office, dominates his nonfiction as well.

Tomlinson was born on 21 June 1873, in Wanstead, Essex, the eldest son of Henry and Emily Tomlinson. If anyone ever was born with the sea in his blood, it was Tomlinson. The son and grandson of seafaring men, Tomlinson absorbed the lore of the sea as much from the table talk in the home as from the docks at Poplar, a London shipping parish. He became a clerk at the offices of...