The Submarine Hunters: A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War

Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.9
Word count
430K words
Chapters
43

Tags

English Originals War and Military Fiction Military AdventureWar LiteratureMilitary StrategySubmarine WarfareFleet PatrolBoy HeroSea AdventureCourage and ResponsibilityNaval WarfareWorld War I

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Submarine Hunters: A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great WarAuthor: Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Sep 16, 2008

Editor's review

This is a naval-patrol adventure novel for young readers by the British author Percy F. Westerman, set against the anti-submarine patrols of the First World War and belonging to the category of juvenile literature. The work combines naval military action with coming-of-age adventure; it moves at a brisk pace and carries the uprightness, courage and patriotism characteristic of juvenile reading of its era. For Chinese readers it is both a sample of early twentieth-century English adventure fiction for the young and a window onto how First World War naval-patrol narrative was popularized. It is best read as literature in its historical context rather than as campaign history; its characterizations and friend-foe conceptions bear clear marks of their time, which makes it useful for discussing the propagandistic tinge in war literature and the evolution of the juvenile-hero narrative. Suitable for readers interested in naval history, First World War popular fiction, or the development of English juvenile fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the preface or learn the background of First World War anti-submarine patrols before the main text, to grasp the plot setup more quickly.
  2. Read the friend-foe descriptions as period texts and jot down propagandistic passages for later discussion.
  3. Read alongside other juvenile adventure novels of the same period to observe common naval tropes and their variations.
  4. For the English original, read through for plot first, then revisit key naval-engagement passages to appreciate the narrative language of the time.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43

FAQ

Is this book suitable as source material for First World War naval history? Not really. It is essentially an adventure novel for young readers; naval patrols are only the backdrop, and details serve plot and character rather than strict historical record. For campaign history, choose a military-history monograph instead; this book is better for observing how popular literature of the time presented the war.
How difficult is the English? The work dates from the early twentieth century, and its sentence patterns and vocabulary bear the marks of that era; the narration is fairly traditional and may feel alien to readers used to contemporary English. Readers with intermediate or better English who are willing to adapt to the old style will get in fairly easily; beginners may use annotations or a translation as support.
Why recommend connecting it with the topic of war propaganda? Juvenile adventure novels of this kind often inspire readers through sharp friend-foe divisions and heroic deeds, and carry the propagandistic coloring of their time. Noticing how characters are shaped and how the enemy is described helps one understand the relationship between British popular literature and public sentiment during the First World War, and also cultivates critical reading awareness.

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About the author

Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959 Author

Percy F. Westerman (1876–1959) was a British author known for adventure novels for young readers. Public information about him is limited, and few details of his life are available. The library holds 36 of his works, mostly naval and war stories: A Watch-dog of the North Sea and Under the White Ensign are set against naval operations in the Great War; The Nameless Island is a modern Robinson Crusoe tale of survival on a deserted island; and The Quest of the Golden Hope returns to seventeenth-century maritime adventure. He also wrote early aviation fiction such as The Dreadnought of the Air, and battlefield stories like A Lively Bit of the Front, about the New Zealand Rifles on the Western Front. His novels are tightly plotted, with attention to technical detail and discipline, and were influential in early twentieth-century English boys' fiction.