The Home of Naval Fiction in the Age of Fighting Steam
Welcome To The Adventure!
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Nicholas Dawlish is a British naval officer as the British Empire reaches its apogee in the late Victorian period. The Age of Sail is dying slowly and Dawlish is building his career in the new era of steam, ironclads, heavy guns and torpedoes that is replacing it. It’s also an age of rapid political and social change. Old enemies and new empires are challenging Britain’s global power, often through vicious proxy conflicts which offer Dawlish opportunities for advancement, though at the risk of his life and his integrity. The eleven volumes published so far are all linked to actual historical events and are set in locales as various as the Black Sea and the Balkans in winter, a river-system in the heart of South America, the luxury and squalor of the United States’ Gilded Age, Cuba in revolt, Denmark under attack from Prussia and Austria, Korea as it emerges from centuries of isolation, the slave trade and German colonial ambitions in East Africa, the Sudan engulfed in an Islamist revolt and – not the least deadly – the corrupt and brutal underside of the complacent and outwardly respectable society of Late-Victorian Britain.
Antoine Vanner
New Book by Antoine Vanner – his first non-fiction title
Broadside and Boarding
Small scale action in the Age of Fighting Sail 1740 – 1815
Antoine Vanner is a novelist, not a formal historian. Broadside and Boarding is his first non-fiction work, though he has published twelve volumes so far of the Dawlish Chronicles series of naval adventure, set in the late 19th Century.
This new book refers to an earlier era, the Great Age of Fighting Sail that spanned the years 1740 – 1815. It tells largely forgotten real-life stories of small-scale actions, not of the great fleet battles like Trafalgar. Many involve little more than a handful of resolute men fighting their own lonely and desperate battles, small epics that still inspire.
Broadside and Boarding is not a formal history but a collection of some eighty articles. Reading times vary from ten to fifteen minutes. They’re ideal for coffee or tea breaks, for when one is waiting for a train or flight, for delays of all kinds and for when mood precludes a prolonged reading session. This is a book that belongs on bedside tables and in guest rooms, in cars’ glove compartments or, in Kindle format, in briefcases and handbags, always readily accessible.
Uncovering these stories demanded searches not just in classic and near-contemporary histories of the time but in smaller and obscure books perhaps unopened for decades. In many cases there are direct quotes from reports or letters written in the immedate aftermath of the events involved. These are often touching and sometimes inspirational, bridging the centuries through recognition of our shared humanity.
Publication date, Kindle and Paperback, is December 7th 2024
Kindle editon available for preorder at 25% discocount on later published price.
Click links below for details.
USA UK and Ireland Canada Australia and New Zealand
The Dawlish Chronicles Series
Antoine Vanner, author of the Dawlish Chronicles series spent many years in the international oil industry and still travels extensively on a private basis. His understanding of human nature, passion for nineteenth-century political and military history and first-hand experience of his books’ locales provide the background to his novels centred on the lives of Royal Navy officer Nicholas Dawlish and his wife Florence.
“Antoine Vanner is the Tom Clancy of historical naval fiction.” – Author Joan Druett
Below are the twelve Dawlish Chronicles novels published to date.
Click here or on the image above for more information on the individual books.
Click here to see how they relate to the life of Nicholas Dawlish (1845 – 1918).
All are available in Paperback or Kindle format and can be read at no extra charge by Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Prime Subscribers.
In Audiobook format also…
Britannia’s Wolf is also available as an audio-book. It’s been read by the distinguished American actor David Doersch. If you haven’t previously ordered an audio-book from audible.com you can download it without cost as part of a 30-Day Free Trial. You can listen on your Smart Phone, Tablet or MP3 Player. Click here for details.
A Life of Service and Adventure
Admiral Sir Nicholas Dawlish (1845-1918) is probably best remembered today for leaving retirement in 1914, at the request of his friend and sometime rival Lord Fisher, to assume responsibility for Unconventional Naval Operations.
His imaginative filling of that role, and his death at the age of seventy-two on the Zeebrugge Mole, where he fell in a hail of machine-gun fire on St.George’s Day 1918, (making him the oldest serving officer to fall in action in either World War), ended an illustrious career in a manner which he would have found wholly appropriate…
Click here, to read about Dawlish’s life and how the individual books chronicle it.
Click here, or on “Conflict” on the top bar, to learn about the world he lived in, its challenges, its personalities, its crises and its weapons. There are also dozens of articles about the “Age of Fighting Sail 1700-1837” as well as the early 20th Century.
The Dawlish Chronicles Blog
Antoine Vanner blogs weekly on naval and more general history and personalities in the period 1700-1918. Topics include naval warfare in the Age of Fighting Sail, the transition from Sail to Steam, international rivalries, dramatic happenings and little-known events that have helped shape the world we live in. The topics are never predictable but always entertaining. In this blog Antoine draws heavily on information he has come across during his researches for the Dawlish Chronicles but which may not be directly used in the books themselves. It is however too good to let go to waste – and hence the blog! You can find the most recent blogs below and many of the older postings (some two hundred!) can be accessed by clicking on “Conflict” on the bar above.
