top of page

RESOURCES

The Code Black and Blackwell’s Adventures books are works of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed are either products of my imagination or are used fictitiously. Any errors, omissions, etc., are naturally my own. – V.E. Ulett

Below is a list of resources for actual historical and cultural detail.

 

Of God, and World Religions

The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam, by G. Willow Wilson

No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, by Reza Aslan

When God Was A Woman, by Merlin Stone

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, by Geraldine Brooks

 

Eighteenth – Nineteenth Century Women, Women at Sea

The Education of Women and the Vices of Men, Two Qajar Tracts, translated from the Persian and with an introduction by Hasan Javadi and Willem Floor

Customs and Manners of the Women of Persia and Their Domestic Superstitions, translated from the Original Persian Manuscript by James Atkinson

Eleanor’s Odyssey, by Joan Druett

Hen Frigates: Passion and Peril, Nineteenth-Century Women at Sea, by Joan Druett

Female Tars: women aboard ship in the age of sail, by Suzanne J. Stark

Jane Austin: Her Life, by Park Honan

Pauline Bonaparte, by Flora Fraser

Emma Hamilton, by Norah Lofts

Mistress of the Elgin Marbles, a Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, by Susan Nagel

Jane Austen and the Navy, by Brian Southam

Naval Wives and Mistresses, by Margarette Lincoln

 

Pacific Island and Indigenous Cultures

Tupaia, by Joan Druett

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond

Anahulu, Volume One, The Anthropology of History in the Kingdom of Hawaii, by Patrick V. Kirch and Marshall Sahlins

International Rivalry in the Pacific 1800 – 1875, by Jean Ingram Brookes

The Sex Lives of Cannibals, by J. Maarten Troost

Island, How Islands Transform the World, by J. Edward Chamberlin

The Book of Voyages, ed. Patrick O’Brian

Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands, in the Years 1824-1825, by Lady Maria Callcott and Baron George Anson Byron Byron and Richard Rowland Bloxam

 
Shipwreck and survival stories

Lady Castaways, by Joan Druett

An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands in the South Pacific Ocean, by William Mariner

Skeletons of the Zahara, by Dean King

The White Headhunter: The Story of a 19th-Century Sailor Who Survived a South Seas Heart of Darkness, by Nigel Randell

The Elephant Voyage, by Joan Druett

Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, Robert Knox, and the Creation of a Myth, by Katherine Frank

 

Primary source material

A Lady’s Captivity Among Chinese Pirates in the Chinese Seas, translated from the French of Mademoiselle Fanny Loviot by Amelia B. Edwards

A Voyage to the South Atlantic and Round Cape Horn to the Pacific Ocean, by James Colnett

Journal of a Residence in Chile During the Year 1822, and a Voyage from Chile to Brazil in 1823, by Maria Graham, ed. Jennifer Hayward

Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, by Frances Burney

Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier, by Jakob Walter, ed. Marc Raeff

The Wynne Diaries 1789 – 1820, by Elizabeth Wynne, ed. Anne Fremantle

Augustus Hervey’s Journal, by Augustus Hervey, ed. David Erskine

Five Naval Journals 1789 – 1817, ed. Rear-Admiral H.G. Thursfield, F.S.A.

The Dispatches & Letters of Lord Nelson, Volume V, January 1802 – April 1804, ed. Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, G.C.M.G.

Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana

The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex, by Owen Chase

 

Naval and Military

Men-of-War: Life in Nelson’s Navy, by Patrick O’Brian

The Eyes of the Fleet, A Popular History of Frigates and Frigate Captains, 1793 – 1815, by Anthony Price

Every Man will do his duty: an anthology of first-hand accounts from the age of Nelson, 1793 – 1815, by Dean King

Six Frigates, by Ian W. Toll

The Mammoth Book of Life Before the Mast, ed. Jon E. Lewis

Nelson’s Navy: the ships, men, and organization, 1793 – 1815, by Brian Lavery

Sea Battles in Close-Up: The Age of Nelson, by David Lyon

Cochrane, the Real Master and Commander, by David Cordingly

Lord Cochrane, by Christopher Lloyd

 

Regency England

The Regency Companion, by Sharon H. Laudermilk, Teresa L. Hamlin

Passion and Principle, the Loves and Lives of Regency Women, by Jane Aiken Hodge

The Prince of Pleasure and His Regency, by J.B. Priestley

Regency London, by Stella Margetson

Our Tempestuous Day, by Carolly Erickson

An Elegant Madness, by Venetia Murray

Mrs Hurst Dancing & other scenes from Regency Life 1812 – 1823, Watercolours by Diana Sperling, text by Gordon Mingay

 

Eighteenth – Nineteenth Century Life

The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes

Life in the English Country House, by Mark Girouard

Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

Byron, by Elizabeth Longford

The Duel: A History of Duelling, by Robert Baldrick

The Immortal Dinner: a famous evening of genius & laughter in literary London, 1817, by Penelope Hughes-Hallett

European Thought and Culture in the 19th Century, by Lloyd Kramer

The Book of Abigail and John: selected letters of the Adams family, 1765 – 1784, by Abigail Adams, John Adams, Lyman Henry Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline

This Republic of Suffering, by Drew Gilpin Faust

Joseph Banks: A Life, by Patrick O’Brian

John Adams, by David G. McCullough

 

General Seafaring

Under the Black Flag, by David Cordingly

Jack Aubrey Commands: an historical companion to the naval world of Patrick O’Brian, by Brian Lavery

Sailing Alone Around the World, by Joshua Slocum

A Sea of Words , by Dean King, with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes

Harbors and High Seas, by Dean King, with John B. Hattendorf

The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger

bottom of page