Julian Stockwin Books in Order

Young wig-maker Thomas Paine Kydd is seized by the press-gang and thrown aboard a 98-gun ship of the line. Amid savage discipline, storms and battle he slowly discovers a talent for the sea and the fierce comradeship of sailors.

Now an able seaman in the crack frigate Artemis, Kydd revels in swift sailing and hard fighting. A summons home threatens his new life, then a later voyage into the wild Southern Ocean forces him to prove his courage against the elements.

Serving as master’s mate on Achilles, Kydd joins a dangerous mission to rescue a diplomat in Italy before finally sailing for long-awaited home. There he is swept into the Nore mutiny, torn between loyalty to shipmates and obedience to the King’s service.

Promoted acting lieutenant after the Battle of Camperdown, Kydd must pass his examination or return before the mast. Posted to HMS Tenacious on the North American station, he battles snobbery in the wardroom while war with France spills into the quarrel between Britain and the young United States.

Shipwrecked after the loss of Artemis, Kydd and his shipmates find themselves stranded ashore as reluctant court-martial witnesses. Sent abruptly to the Caribbean in the small Seaflower, they face sugar-plantation politics, deadly fever and a new test of loyalty and seamanship.

In Halifax, Kydd enjoys new status among his peers until Tenacious is summoned to join Nelson’s task force in the Mediterranean. As the hunt for Bonaparte’s elusive fleet intensifies, Kydd’s ambition collides with the brutal reality of fleet action and the risk of catastrophic defeat.

Given his first command, the brig-sloop Teazer, Kydd races to ready her to defend Malta against French forces and Barbary pirates. When peace abruptly strands him ashore, a convict voyage to Australia reunites him with Renzi and forces both men to face hard truths about duty and freedom.

Back in command of Teazer in 1803, Kydd patrols home waters to curb smuggling and watch a hostile French coast. Amid gales, privateers and tricky inshore work, his growing attachment to an admiral’s daughter threatens his career and his long friendship with Renzi.

Reeling from personal tragedy and professional disgrace, Kydd is exiled to humdrum duty guarding the Channel Islands. Betrayed off the Normandy coast and stripped of his ship, he clings to the sea by taking command of a privateer, hunting prizes while fighting for a path back to honour.

As rumours of Napoleon’s invasion gather, Kydd is ordered away from the battle line to work with American inventor Robert Fulton on experimental submarines and torpedoes. Helping test these “infernal machines” forces him to weigh traditional notions of honour against a new, more ruthless kind of warfare.

This companion volume collects sea lore, odd naval facts, superstitions and tall-ship trivia, from animals aboard warships to the origins of everyday nautical sayings. Short, lively pieces make it an easy way to dip into the wider world behind Kydd’s adventures.

Kydd rejoins the fleet under Nelson as Britain braces for invasion. From exhausting chases across the Atlantic to the thunder of Trafalgar itself, he witnesses the chaos, courage and loss behind a battle that will decide the fate of Europe.

Newly victorious at Trafalgar, Britain turns to seizing key outposts. Kydd sails with an expedition to capture Dutch-held Cape Town, then must defend the fragile colony against enemies, treachery and the harsh African interior while Renzi uncovers a dangerous plot ashore.

Under the daring Commodore Popham, Kydd joins a small British force that strikes at Buenos Aires, lured by unrest and rumours of Spanish silver. Initial success unravels as local hostility hardens into revolt, leaving Kydd’s men surrounded and fighting simply to escape.

Now captain of the frigate L'Aurore, Kydd returns to the Caribbean of his early service expecting easier days chasing prizes. Instead he confronts vanishing merchant ships, a ruthless new French threat to the sugar trade and a deadly game of intelligence and counterattack among the islands.

Recalled from the Caribbean, Kydd is drawn into a crisis at the Dardanelles, where French influence is turning the Ottoman Empire against Britain. As he faces treacherous currents and giant coastal guns, Renzi works undercover in Constantinople, and both men risk everything to prevent a strategic disaster.

In sixth-century Rome and Constantinople, merchant Nicander and soldier Marius flee invasion and reinvent themselves as schemers in the eastern capital. Their boldest plan sends them along the Silk Road to steal the secret of silk, a journey that could make or destroy them.

As his former commander Sir Home Popham faces a sensational court-martial, Kydd’s open support angers powerful figures in the Admiralty. Punished with command of the recently mutinous Tyger, he must shape a sullen crew into a fighting unit and lead them into perilous Baltic waters against Napoleon’s armies.

In 1807, with Napoleon dominant on land, Britain moves to keep neutral Denmark’s fleet out of French hands. While Kydd sails with a powerful armada toward Copenhagen, Renzi pursues a last-ditch diplomatic mission, and both men are caught up in a devastating bombardment that sets a city ablaze.

Ordered to Lisbon to help evacuate the Portuguese royal family ahead of Napoleon’s advance, Kydd finds an old flame rekindled with Persephone Lockwood, an admiral’s daughter from his past. Pursuing her in London’s drawing rooms while commanding the royal yacht, he must also outwit French privateers stalking a prince of the blood.

Parted from his new bride, Kydd joins the Northern Expedition to Sweden as Britain’s position in the Baltic comes under threat from Russia. In bitter northern seas Tyger faces ice, enemy fleets and poisonous jealousy within the squadron, as Kydd fights to salvage both his reputation and the campaign.

In thirteenth-century Oxford, the closely guarded Chinese secret of gunpowder reaches an English scholar who vows it will die with him. Years later, one man’s obsession with the "powder of death" helps bring crude cannon onto the battlefield, changing war forever at Crécy.

As Napoleon moves to dismantle Portugal and place his brother on Spain’s throne, Renzi slips into Iberia to fan resistance while Kydd serves under a bitter old enemy. When the British army is forced into a brutal retreat to the coast, only the navy’s intervention can save it from destruction.

After heroics during the Corunna retreat, Kydd becomes the toast of London and falls in with the daring frigate captain Lord Cochrane. Drawn into the fireship attack at the Basque Roads, he confronts both his fear of flame and the financial ruin that follows, chasing whispers of Spanish treasure.

With Europe at stalemate, Kydd and Tyger sail east to help seize the Dutch East Indies. Working alongside Stamford Raffles, he backs a bold strike at the Moluccas and later fights for Java, where thin British forces battle to secure a new empire in the tropics.

In 1811 the Adriatic has become a "French lake," and Kydd is sent to lead a frigate squadron to harry Napoleon’s forces there. As Bonaparte dispatches a favourite captain to crush the "Sea Devil," Renzi probes Metternich’s diplomacy and Cecilia braves the Alps to deliver a message that could shift the balance of power.

Promoted to a 74-gun ship of the line, Kydd takes command of the aging Thunderer and finds a short-handed crew with poor gunnery and morale. While he battles to shape them into a fighting team, events in Russia pull the ship into the Baltic for a high-stakes campaign.

During the War of 1812, the capture of HMS Java by USS Constitution shakes British confidence at sea. While Thunderer refits, Kydd is ordered to take Tyger to the American coast and draw a Yankee frigate into single combat to restore the navy’s battered pride.

Following a near-fatal wound in America, Kydd returns to England and reclaims command of Thunderer, now sent to the supposedly quiet station of Bermuda. There he is drawn into American and Spanish manoeuvres around Florida, where diplomacy, intrigue and naval muscle intertwine as Europe slides back toward crisis.

In the final Kydd adventure, the once-pressed sailor has become Admiral Sir Thomas Kydd. As Napoleon escapes Elba and threatens Europe again, Kydd takes emergency command of a scratch Channel force, using bluff and bold seamanship to block a last French invasion before Waterloo seals the tyrant’s fate.