| McBooks
Press has acquired publishing rights to the exciting Lord Ramage
Series. All eighteen volumes are now available in their fine trade
paperback editions. The Ned Yorke series and several of Dudley Pope's
excellent nonfiction works are also currently in print. |
Alexander
Kent
contributes
the Introduction to
Ramage
by
Dudley Pope
WELCOME
ABOARD!
If
I were asked to describe Dudley Pope's true gift to his many readers
I would simply say that he was a man of the sea. Coming from an
old Cornish family, he had learned the moods and the temptations
of the sea. And its dangers.
Like
so many of us he was very young when he served in the Battle of
the Atlantic, a conflict so vital that it decided the margin of
victory or defeat.
He was invalided out after his ship was torpedoed, and some might
have thought that for him it was finished. In fact, he never left
the sea until his dying day.
One
of my original publishers insisted that to be a successful writer
you had first to be a good listener. The research part of it would
find its own way. I think that Dudley Pope built his solid reputation
as a naval historian and storyteller first on his ability to carry
out even the most obscure research, and then on the pleasure he
seemed to derive from passing that information on effortlessly
to his readers. He wrote factual accounts of the Atlantic and
the River Plate with the same dedication to detail as the court-martial
of the unfortunate Admiral Byng, who was executed in 1757.
Too
often writers are called upon to relate real life events, but
fail to satisfy the memories and the expectations of those who
served in that ship or campaign. Dudley Pope once wrote a book
about the battles and deeds of our Light Coastal Forces in the
Mediterranean, a fast-moving war of motor gunboats and motor torpedo
boats. Records were few; research must have been difficult. But
it was my war too, and when I read that book its authenticity
was such that I felt he was right beside me.
I
had little contact with Dudley Pope the man, except when I was
asked to write a lengthy review of his book THE BLACK SHIP, in
my opinion the best description of the bloodiest and most chilling
mutiny in the Royal Navy's history. It made the much-maligned
William Bligh's Bounty seem like a tea party! He was a sailor,
deep-water yachtsman, and writer of the sea. So now, through Lieutenant
Ramage, we can say sincerely, Welcome Aboard. Again!
|
