Frigates, Sloops and Brigs by James Henderson (ISBN: 9781848845268) has lots of good short snippets of historical British ship captains and their notable victories. While it is history, the author tells their tales like a storyteller would. Some of the feats of battle and seamanship described are pretty inspiring and I imagine would not look out of place in a PF adventure module.
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Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe books are (mostly Napoleonic) adventure stories from the redcoat army. They're pretty good, they were made into a TV series with Sean Bean in the UK
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The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy is a swashbuckling adventure that takes place in 1792 during the depths of the French Revolution. An english aristocrat leads his fellows in saving the lives of condemned french nobles from Madame Guillotine. She followed it up with a dozen sequels. There was also a series of movies on BBC and A&E starring Richard E. Grant and Elizabeth McGovern.
The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas pere (the elder) If you don't know this book, nothing I write will save your eternally damned soul.
James Fenimore Cooper, the collected works.
The aforementioned Sharpe series has several of the novels set in India and one with an ocean voyage to Chile. The entire series is excellent. The series of tv movies starring Sean Bean are also wonderful. A rare opportunity to watch Sean Bean not die on screen.
On Stranger Tides, Tim Powers - This novel, the inspiration for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, was written in 1987. It's time frame is much earlier than you are looking for, but it is well worth the read if you are planning to run an adventure that mixes firearms and magic.
Master and Commander. Patrick O'Brian I think this is where your search may both begin and end. He wrote over 70 books and most were seafarer novels.
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The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy is a swashbuckling adventure that takes place in 1792 during the depths of the French Revolution. An english aristocrat leads his fellows in saving the lives of condemned french nobles from Madame Guillotine. She followed it up with a dozen sequels. There was also a series of movies on BBC and A&E starring Richard E. Grant and Elizabeth McGovern.
We seek him here, we seek him there
The Galties search for him everywhereIs he in heaven, is he in hell?
That demmed elusive Pimpernel!
Vive le Galt!!
_The_Jungle_Book_ by Rudyard Kipling is set in colonial India.
You might try Alexander Kent's Bolitho series. It's set in the Napoleonic Era British Navy and covers most oceans and areas in the course of the series.
Rudyard Kipling's 'Kim' is set in Colonial India too, though maybe a bit later than you're looking for.
It's not exactly what you're looking for, but Eric Flint's 1812: The Rivers of War is an alternate history set during the War of 1812, and is the only alternate history novel set in that place and time I've ever heard of. Among other things it shows the burning of Washington D.C. and the Battle of New Orleans from the British perspective and goes a bit into British attempts to retain some control over American westward expansion.
Sharpe as mentioned before, Flashman is as good if not better than the Sharpe stories, the Hornblower series, a touch earlier is REH's Solomon Kane, or his El Borak might be what you are looking for.
If you want proper literature For the Term of his Natural Life, Heart of Darkness.
George Macdonald Fraser's FLASHMAN series of darkly comic novels are set in almost every corner of the British Empire in the 19th Century (and some places beyond, such as Imperial Russia and both pre- and post-Civil War America). Whilst the main character is fictional, just about every single other character is a real figure and the books are extremely historically accurate. They inspired the SHARPE books mentioned above.
No-one's mentioned Rudyard Kipling's Kim yet? For shame!
No-one's mentioned Rudyard Kipling's Kim yet? For shame!
?
Rudyard Kipling's 'Kim' is set in Colonial India too, though maybe a bit later than you're looking for.
You're a better man than I, Gunga Din!
I mean, For Workers Revolution to Smash British Imperialism!
Which makes me think of this comic which I picked up the first trade of on a whim a couple of years ago. I liked it, but never read any more. Has anyone here read it?
No-one's mentioned Rudyard Kipling's Kim yet? For shame!?
Rudyard Kipling's 'Kim' is set in Colonial India too, though maybe a bit later than you're looking for.
Gah! Time to put more ranks into Perception.
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George Macdonald Fraser's FLASHMAN series of darkly comic novels are set in almost every corner of the British Empire in the 19th Century (and some places beyond, such as Imperial Russia and both pre- and post-Civil War America). Whilst the main character is fictional, just about every single other character is a real figure and the books are extremely historically accurate. They inspired the SHARPE books mentioned above.
Anyone who reads Flashman should read Tom Brown's Schooldays first.
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, the last of the series, covers a post-Napoleonic admiral trying to handle a bunch of stuff in the Wesr Indies with a greatly diminished fleet early in the 1820s.
Lieutenant Hornblower covers an earlier visit of said character to the West Indies. Beat to Quarters puts him on the Pacific coast, almost in the same area.
A couple of Dewey Lambdin's books feature a British Navy officer in the Caribbean during and shortly after the American Revolution. Don't remember the exact titles, but I think the first three or four books in the Alan Lewrie series are thrones in question.
Dudley Pope's The Black Ship, though non fiction, is very much along those lines, covering the most infamous naval mutiny in British history.
Robert Louis Stevenson, almost anything although he likes to set his adventures at many different points in the timestream.
Which makes me think of this comic which I picked up the first trade of on a whim a couple of years ago. I liked it, but never read any more. Has anyone here read it?
I think I've got the first two or three trades. I really liked the idea, but between only getting down to a store that sold trades a few times a year and the plot being involved enough that I wanted to reread the lot before I started in on a new one I lost track of it.
Yeah, I remember really liking it. It seemed a little bit derivative of LXG and Fables, but, shiznit, I'll eat that type of stuff all day long.
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About all I can offer you is a collection of old newspapers online: Here is a comment about hostilities between the USA and Great Britain - six months after it started
Actually I can do you better: