Sea Tales: The Pilot; The Red Rover (Library of America)

THE PILOT is about warfare on land and sea between the rebelling USA and mother Britain between the years of, say, 1778 and 1792. The pilot in question, though never named, is legendary John Paul (Jones), father of the American navy. He lands in northeastern England to extract valuable hostages to exchange for American revolutionaries taken at sea by the British. The success of his mission depends on his uncanny seamanship amid shoals, rocks and currents. Subplots abound. Jones meets with a former love. Other young lovers pursue their future mates against great odds. By 1792, the year of Jones's death, two wartime enemies are the best of friends on the US-Canadian frontier. This novel established a new literary genre: the sea adventure tale. ... The volume's second novel is THE RED ROVER, written five years after THE PILOT. After a very slow beginning full of intrigue in and around the harbor of Newport, Rhode Island in October 1759, young Harry Wilder and companions board the disguised pirate ship, the Red Rover, with a royal commission to identify and bring to justice its captain who uses the same name. After a long sea chase of a rich merchantman, the Red Rover captures a British frigate. In time the pirate proves himself an early patriot laboring for the freedom of the North American colonies from their British overlords. The novel abounds in mood changes, disguises, false flags for the Rover and twists and turns in the pirate chief's identities, moods and whims. At novel's end the Rover, whose real name is Heidegger, is revealed to be an American patriot, as Newport celebrates the end of the war for independence. -OOO-