The King's Own

Captain Frederick Marryat's The King's Own begins in a shadowed register, where honor, guilt, and ruin are bound to the brutal realities of naval life. Against the backdrop of the Mutiny at the Nore in 1797, the novel presents a fleet strained by neglect and resentment, and follows Edward Peters, an educated seaman falsely accused, harshly punished, and driven toward desertion, capture, and a devastating court-martial sentence. Marryat uses this ordeal to expose the cruelty of discipline and the way humiliation can turn loyalty into rebellion. A later mutiny scene intensifies those themes when Captain A—'s threat to shoot Willy Peters, the crew's beloved child, breaks the last restraint; Peters rises as leader, the men rally around the boy, and the marines refuse orders and join the mutineers. The novel also turns to questions of identity, inheritance, and moral certainty. Seymour's love for Emily is complicated by his belief that he is penniless and of unknown birth, until McElvina reveals the truth and the lovers are joyfully reunited. But the discovery also exposes a deeper legal conflict: Rainscourt's valet recognizes Seymour's shoulder mark, and a group led by McElvina, the vicar, Debriseau, and a lawyer confronts Rainscourt with proof of Seymour's claim, provoking hostility and setting new dangers in motion. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.