The Phantom Ship
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Frontispiece to the 1847 edition | |
| Author | Frederick Marryat |
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| Language | English |
| Genre | Gothic novel |
| Publisher | E.L. Carey & A. Hart |
Publication date | May 1839 |
| ISBN | NA |
| OCLC | 1711835 |
| Text | The Phantom Ship at Wikisource |
The Phantom Ship (1839) is a Gothic novel by Frederick Marryat which explores the legend of the Flying Dutchman and, in one chapter, features a werewolf.
The plot concerns the quest of Philip Vanderdecken of Terneuzen in the Netherlands to save his father - who has been doomed to sail for eternity as Captain of the Phantom Ship, after he made a rash oath to heaven and slew one of the crew whilst attempting to sail round the Cape of Good Hope. Philip sails around the world in a number of ships, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, so that he can redeem his father by presenting him with the relic of the Holy Cross he wears round his neck. His quest, however, brings him into conflict with earthly and unearthly powers as the sight of the Flying Dutchman brings doom to all who encounter her.
One chapter concerning a werewolf has often been excerpted in anthologies of supernatural fiction as The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains.
The novel was originally serialised in The New Monthly Magazine beginning in March 1837 and ending in August 1839.
S.T. Joshi has called the novel "an aesthetic disaster - appallingly prolix, and written in a stiff, cumbersome style that reads like a bad translation from a foreign language." [1]
References
- ↑ S.T. Joshi, Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction, Volume 1. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2014, p. 188
External links
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