William Clark Russell
William Clark Russell (1844-1911) was born of English parents at the Carleton House Hotel in New York City. He
went to school at Winchester, and then at Boulogne. At 14 (some sources state 13) he joined the British merchant
service and served for eight years (1858-1866), He made several voyages to India and Australia, and while off
the coast of China in 1860 witnessed the capture of the Taku forts by the combined British and French forces. His
early seafaring adventures, as well as accounts of historical voyages, provided much of his material for his
fifty-seven sea novels. John Holdsworth, Chief Mate (1874) immediately made his reputation. Other
successful stories were: The Wreck of the Grosvenor (1875), in which he pleaded for better food for
English seamen; An Ocean Tragedy (1881), The Emigrant Ship (1894), The Ship, Her
Story (1894), The Convict Ship (1895), What Cheer! (1895), The Two Captains (1897), The
Romance of a Midshipman (1898), The Ship's Adventure (1899), Overdue (1903),
Abandoned (1904), His Island Princess (1905). His novels provided much the same benefits for the
merchant service as Capt. Marryat's had for the Royal Navy. Russell's novels stimulated public interest in the
conditions under which sailors lived, paving the way for the reform of many abuses. His stories of maritime
horror include The Frozen Pirate (Belgravia, July 1887-Jan. 1888), The Death Ship (1888;
a tale of the Flying Dutchman), and the collection Phantom Death and Other Stories (1895). In the late 1880s
he joined the staff of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, and afterwards became a leader writer on
the Daily Telegraph, but the double labour of journalism and novel-writing threatened his health,
and he resigned in 1887. Many of the papers which he contributed to the Daily Telegraph were
collected in volume form in Round the Galley Fire and other volumes. He also wrote a Life of Lord
Collingwood (1891), and, with W. H. Jacques, Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England (1890).
E-TEXTS:
BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1, 2
BIOGRAPHY: 1 (at bottom)
Some W.C. Russell titles in print
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A review by Georges T. Dodds
Between Marryat's The Phantom Ship and William Hope Hodgson's tales of maritime horror, by far the best and most prolific
purveyor of this sort of literature was William Clark Russell. Largely forgotten today, except by fans of sea stories, W.
Clark Russell wrote close to 50 novels of the sea. The Frozen Pirate is the first instance in English literature of
the use of cryonic suspension as a plot device, preceding H.G. Wells' suspended animation machine in When the Sleeper
Wakes by a dozen years. The prolific French author Louis Boussenard's Dix mille ans dans un bloc de glace (1889)
was also an early example of cryogenics, but in a more science fiction context. Of course, suspended animation itself
had been the theme of Edgar Allen Poe's much earlier "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar."
Only survivor of a storm which leaves his ship on a huge Antarctic iceberg, Paul Rodney, mate of the Laughing Mary,
continues to drift south. Seemingly sentenced to die alone in the Antarctic vastness, scene of the discovery of innumerable
lost races in the literature of the era, the mate comes instead upon a ancient pirate ship locked tight in the ice fields. Aboard
the pirate ship he discovers numerous members of a pirate crew, frozen stiff, and large stocks of food, drink, and
coal. When placed near a fire, one of the sailors begins to revive. Aided by the mate, the pirate is gradually brought
to consciousness. Jules Tassard, a French corsair is astounded to find himself alive, and refuses to acknowledge his
fifty year sleep. In gratitude, he shows Rodney several treasure chests stowed in the hold, but becomes increasingly
cranky, then begins slipping into madness, to the point that Rodney life may be endangered. Suddenly, as happened with
Poe's M. Valdemar, the centenarian sailor begins to age rapidly.
Russell's writing, while plain and clearly of its era, certainly captures the feel of the sea, the hopelessness
of being lost in the Antarctic. The scenes on the pirate ship are quite gripping and the tension developed when the
thawed pirate begins drifting into madness is also very well done. The horror elements are well handled without
being over the top, the atmosphere Russell develops in his description of the frozen pirate ship does much more to
"creep one out" than any mere description of the dead bodies would have. So if you enjoy William Hope Hodgson's more tropical and
fungus-laden Sargasso sea derelicts, you'll probably enjoy your travel to chillier climes with W. Clark Russell
Copyright © 2002 Georges T. Dodds
Georges Dodds is a research scientist in vegetable crop physiology, who for close to 25 years has
read and collected close to 2000 titles of predominantly pre-1950 science-fiction and fantasy, both
in English and French. He writes columns on early imaginative literature for WARP,
the newsletter/fanzine of the
Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association
and maintains a site reflecting his tastes in imaginative literature.
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