Frank Marryat (1826–1855) was an English sailor, artist, and author. He was one of the sons of Captain

Frederick Marryat Captain Frederick Marryat (10 July 1792 – 9 August 1848) was a Royal Navy officer, a novelist, and an acquaintance of Charles Dickens. He is noted today as an early pioneer of nautical fiction, particularly for his semi-autobiographical novel ...

. He joined the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

at 14 years old as

midshipman A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Afr ...

and made a number of drawings during his service on HMS ''Samarang'' in the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

in 1843. He planned to publish these without any accompanying text, but then added text from his own, and colleagues' journals to produce his first book in 1848. In 1850, he left England for California via Panama with a manservant and three hunting dogs. This provided the material for another book, published in New York in 1855, ''a sportsman-tourist's chronicle of California in the early 1850s: hunting, horse races, bear and bull fights, and an Englishman's bemused comments on social life in San Francisco, Stockton, and the gold fields''. There is also a long and vivid description of the

San Francisco Fire of 1851 The San Francisco Fire of 1851 (May 3–4, 1851) was a catastrophic conflagration that destroyed as much as three-quarters of San Francisco, California. History During the height of the California Gold Rush, between December 1849 and June 1851, ...

. He had returned to England in 1853, married, and prepared to return with his new bride to California that same year. However, he had contracted

yellow fever Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. In ...

on board ship, which forced him to cut the trip short and return to England. He died there shortly before his book was published, under the title ''Mountains and Molehills, or Memoirs of a Burnt Journal''.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marryat, Frank 1826 births 1855 deaths Royal Navy officers English sailors British memoirists 19th-century memoirists