This interview originally appeared in the May/June 2008 issue of Quarterdeck, a bi-monthlyl journal offering a selection of interviews with authors and marine artists, as well as the latest news in publsihing related to nautical and historical fiction.

Douglas Reeman ... an early dustwrapper photo.
IT WAS A DAY in June 1958 when Douglas Reeman learned that his first novel, A Prayer for the Ship, had been accepted for publication by British publisher Hutchinson & Company, Ltd, along with two books he had not yet written. It was the dawn of a career that would lead to Reeman’s standing as the best-selling nautical fiction author of all time, with over 34 million copies of his books in print around the world.
     “Douglas’ position in British publishing is legendary,” says Oliver Johnson, Reeman’s present editor at Random House UK. “Over 40 years he has produced bestseller after bestseller, but the incredible thing is that the forthcoming novel, The Glory Boys, is as fresh as his first, A Prayer for the Ship.”
    McBooks Press’s former publisher Alex Skutt adds, “Douglas has provided the foundation upon which McBooks Press built its historical fiction list. The first nautical fiction that we published included several works by Captain Frederick Marryat which were available in the public domain. Shortly thereafter, we made what I consider to be the greatest coup in McBooks Press’s twenty-eight year history: we obtained the American rights to Alexander Kent’s Richard Bolitho novels.”
    As Reeman paused after finishing The Glory Boys manuscript, and before beginning a new Adam Bolitho novel under his pen name, Alexander Kent, he looked back over the first five decades of his distinguished writing career with Quarterdeck:

It has been fifty years since A Prayer for the Ship was published, launching your career. How did you celebrate after leaving your publisher’s office with a contract in hand?

Well, after I came out into Great Portland Street [in London] and stood there in a daze saying, “I’m a writer!” within the hearing of the bus queue, who probably all thought, “Another nut!” I just went back to the boat and had a drink with other people who were living on their boats. I was overwhelmed, really. I thought they were going to offer me a contract for the book and ended up with a contract for A Prayer for the Ship and two others.

As I recall, you did not have a second novel in process at the time. How did you settle on the storyline for High Water?

It was because I was living on my own boat, Guardian, and to make money on the side I was delivering yachts. There were hundreds of boats being sold in England right after the war, and people were buying them who knew nothing about them. And everything was in short supply, everything was rationed in Britain, so people were interested in getting things, commodities, they couldn’t get elsewhere. They didn’t consider it smuggling. It was, of course. And the Channel Islands, particularly, and France, were where they went. That was about as far as many people would venture on their own, anyway. I used to hear about these escapades all the time in yachting circles. I never got involved, though, although I could have done it plenty of times, particularly when it was a boat I was delivering and not my own. There was a case of some one in a boatyard on the Thames who chipped some of the ballast in a boat he was working on, and it turned out to be solid gold. It all served as the basis for High Water.

Did you ever reach the point in your early career where you felt you had “made it” as a novelist?

I thought I’d made it right away, because I never expected to get published! It was the third book, Send a Gunboat, that really sparked off a lot of things. It was serialized in the Toronto Star Weekly, and that was seen by Walter Minton, the head of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, who became my first American publisher. He made a point of coming to meet me, and asked me if I’d consider writing a longer book for him, and that was The Last Raider, which was based on stories I’d heard in Germany at the end of the war. The gunboat in Send a Gunboat, by the way, was HMS. Wagtail, and ever since then the wagtail has been a very lucky bird for me. Oddly enough, at the beginning of this year, two pairs of wagtails, different types, came to stay here. I hope that’s a good omen for the year.

How did your approach to researching your novels develop?

I used my contacts with the Royal Navy, as I was in the reserve after the war, and I was always visiting ships, and talking to people to hear their experiences. And I’ve always traveled a lot to locations, because I realized the vital importance of getting the details right. People have been everywhere today, unlike the old days, when sailors were almost the only ones who went anywhere, and they were the biggest liars on God’s earth, because they could make everything up. And some of the most vital pieces of information have always come from people who come up to me at book signings, or who write to me, and say, “I don’t suppose you want to hear my story ...” I do, of course. It was actually my friend Ewart Brookes, who was the author of Proud Waters, and who really discovered the Cutty Sark, who said to me, “Don’t talk. Just listen.” There’s a lot in that.

In 1968, ten years after A Prayer for the Ship was published, Richard Bolitho was introduced in To Glory We Steer, which was published under your pen name, Alexander Kent. How long had the idea of a series set during the Age of Sail been under consideration?

I’d thought about it for years, not as a series, but as a single book. It was very difficult in those days, because everybody thought of it as C.S. Forester’s territory, but it always appealed to me, ever since I was eleven years old and was taken on board HMS Victory by my illustrious grandfather, who was a color sergeant in the army. A redcoat, no less.

Was there a discussion with your publishers about the market for a series covering the American Revolution, French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars?

It was my idea right from the start, and it wasn’t intended to cover all that ground. It was going to be a series, though, but probably only a few books. I wanted Richard Bolitho to be a certain age in the first book, To Glory We Steer, and I started with him as a captain, not as a midshipman. I thought it would be more interesting. But then I had to go back and forth in time, and it wasn’t until Brian Perman, who was the top publicity man at my English publisher, Hutchinson, decided we should do a bookmark with the chronology of Bolitho’s life that I had to actually decide when he died, and that determined the range of the series. And then I was stuck with it, and had to face up to its inevitability as the time approached.
    I was encouraged by Walter Minton to start the series, because he said, “You’re always talking about Nelson and that period. Why don’t you write about it?” And then he said, “What are we going to call this guy?” I said, “Richard Bolitho,” immediately, because that was the name of the army captain I’d met some years before in Gorey, Jersey, when I was looking for a berth for my boat. He was the brother of the then Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, and he did live to know he’d given his name to our hero. I think he was quite chuffed about it.

At what point in the Bolitho series did you realize there was long-term potential?

That’s a difficult question. When I wrote the second one, I must have known, but the full impact hit me when Brian suggested the chronology of his life. I realized then that it would run for some time. I had no idea what was going to happen during those years, though. In fact, I never know what’s going to happen when I start a book. I’m always surprised.

Was it difficult emotionally to approach Sword of Honour and demise of the man whom you had lived with for so many years?

It happened so suddenly that I hardly knew it had happened, just as I’ve seen people fall in action. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, what he was going to say, if anything, what other people were going to say or do. Of Stockdale, Bolitho’s first coxswain, who was killed in action, Bolitho said, “I never saw him fall,” and that’s true of his own death. I never saw it happen. I was a bit nervous of starting that book, although I knew I had to write it, it would be cowardly and unrealistic to avoid it, and I can’t say that it overshadowed the beginning or filled me with dread as I approached it. After it happened was a different story. I’m still not over it. I felt I’d lost a dear friend. I still feel that way. But if somebody you care about is killed in action you either go on, or you go under. You can’t just mope about. You have to go on.

Do you have a personal favorite period of Richard’s life or a favorite novel in the series?

Terribly difficult thing to answer. I just see it as one long story. The first book will always be very dear to me, of course. Sloop of War is another favorite of mine, because of the ship. I also liked Band of Brothers, his transition from boy to man. I thought about that period as I was writing all the others, and I finally got around to writing it many years later.

Did you have any difficulty initially balancing novels set in different historical periods?

I have no difficulty, because the authors are completely separate. Reeman and Kent don’t mix at all. The research is different, language is different, the ships are different. In Kent, for example, you’ve got to know where everybody’s standing at any one time, what he can see, what he can hear, if he can overhear other characters speaking, whereas with Reeman everybody’s in little metal boxes, as it were. Your focus is going to be different, which characters you concentrate on, and what they can see and hear and are doing. It’s a pleasure if you find one person reads books by both authors, but I don’t expect it.

Your Douglas Reeman novels are standalone stories. How do you select the characters and historic settings for these novels?

I usually choose the setting and then select the characters to fit it. There are so many stories still to be told. And without my own experience I wouldn’t know where to begin or how to go about it. I’ve even climbed the mast of a ship of the line. I didn’t like it then, either.
    Accuracy, technically and in every other way, is everything. I see books accepted for publication these days which are totally inaccurate, and because the people involved don’t care or don’t know, they think the readers won’t notice. That sort of thing makes me very angry.

What have been the greatest changes in publishing over the past half century, from your perspective?

The independent publishers have been swallowed up by vast conglomerates. There must be thirty imprints at my English publisher right now. When I started out at Hutchinson, there were about five. The personal side, the friendly liaison, is very difficult to maintain, because people move on so quickly. I think it’s also true to say that in those early days people had a broader experience of life outside publishing, which made them a little more receptive to new ideas, and books that didn’t quite fit the mold.

What has been the most satisfying aspect of your writing career?

I think the greatest reward is that so many people get in touch who’ve read the books and enjoyed them, many of whom are our former enemies. My second biggest sales are in Germany, my third biggest in Japan. The Germans considered it very radical that I wrote a book, many years ago, from the viewpoint of a U-boat commander, and they’ve reprinted it many times since. I suppose that was a book that didn’t quite fit the mold. Meeting the real people who buy the books, or borrow them from libraries, is very gratifying, and very moving sometimes. And now they e-mail me as well as write.

Given the opportunity, is there anything you would do differently with your career?

In my life, a few. In my career, I don’t think so. I was very lucky from the beginning to find a good publisher, and I didn’t have an agent – I didn’t know any better and they didn’t play a great role in those days – and the publishers and people who were involved became friends of mine. Real friends.

What can you tell our readers about your new novel, The Glory Boys?

The Glory Boys covers a critical period of history, the turning point of the war in the Med, when Malta, bombed, battered and beleaguered, was the only “dagger aimed at the jugular” of the Axis Powers. The navy depended on Malta, as it lies between Gib and Alex, and it was the key to North Africa. The people there suffered greatly, something that might not be recalled these days. I’m glad to see the newspapers still write “Malta, G.C.” as the entire island was awarded the George Cross for its courage. More than that, I don’t want to say.

What is your next writing project?

Alexander Kent takes over the helm. The adventure continues.

Is there anything else you would like to share with your readers?

Simply to thank everybody for their support over the years, because I couldn’t do this without them. And to pay tribute to my wife and fellow writer, my Kim, my inspiration.

- George Jepson

The first UK mass paperback edition cover for Douglas Reeman’s first novel, A Prayer for the Ship, circa 1960.