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English writer (1844–1911)

William Clark Russell (24 February 18448 November 1911) was an English writer best known for his nautical novels. At the age of 13 Russell joined the United Kingdom's Merchant Navy, serving for eight years. The hardships of life at sea damaged his health permanently, but provided him with material for a career as a writer. He wrote short stories, press articles, historical essays, biographies and a book of verse, but was known best for his novels, most of which were about life at sea. He maintained a simultaneous career as a journalist, principally as a columnist on nautical subjects for The Daily Telegraph. Russell campaigned for better conditions for merchant seamen, and his work influenced reforms approved by Parliament to prevent unscrupulous ship owners from exploiting their crews. His influence in this respect was acknowledged by the future King George V. Among Russell's contemporary admirers were Herman Melville, Algernon Swinburne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

There is much confusion around Russell's career, possibly a result of his writings being published anonymously or under various pseudonyms, so much so that even his immediate family were unaware of the full extent of his writings. From the early 1870s, Russell published novels using various pseudonyms (Sydney Mostyn, Eliza Rhyl Davies, and Philip Sheldon) with modest success. The adoption of the more feminine pseudonyms, according to Andrew Nash, "arose from his perception of the novel as a feminized form and novel reading as predominantly a female activity." Russell was at first doubtful if stories of merchant navy life could compete with tales of the Royal Navy: "Only two writers had dealt with the mercantile side of the ocean life – Dana, the author of Two Years before the Mast and Herman Melville, both of them, it is needless to say, Americans. I could not recollect [such] a book written by an Englishman." His first attempt at a novel of merchant navy life was John Holdsworth, Chief Mate during 1875, which Russell later thought of as "reluctant and timid in dealing with sea topics". It received kindly reviews, but Russell regarded his next attempt, The Wreck of the Grosvenor (1877), as his first real sea book. During the next four years it sold nearly 35,000 copies. Excellent reviews and good sales helped establish Russell's writing pattern. It remained popular and widely read in illustrated editions well into the first half of the 20th century. Russell noted in a preface, the novel "found its first and best welcome in the United States,"

The biographer G S Woods lists among Russell's best sea novels The Frozen Pirate (1877), A Sailor's Sweetheart (1880), An Ocean Tragedy (1881), The Death Ship (1888), List, ye Landsmen (1894) and Overdue (1903). According to Woods, Russell wrote a total of 57 novels. Additionally, he published collections of short stories and newspaper articles; a volume of historical essays; popular biographies (William Dampier and Admirals Nelson and Collingwood); and a collection of verses. Among authors, Russell is widely admired and revered. Algernon Swinburne described Russell as "the greatest master of the sea, living or dead." Despite their mutual regard, neither writer influenced the other's style, and it is Melville's works that have proved the more enduring. Arthur Conan Doyle made Dr. John Watson an admirer in The Five Orange Pips in which he was "deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea stories" while temporarily back in 221B Baker Street. Particularly during later years, when arthritis made it difficult for him to hold a pen, Russell dictated his work to a secretary. According to The Manchester Guardian, "like most dictated work, these books have a rather inflated, rhetorical, literary manner." Despite this criticism, the paper concluded:

Later, Russell turned his attention to the deplorable provisions that unscrupulous ship owners provided for merchant seamen on their vessels: "Nothing more atrociously nasty could be found amongst the neglected putrid sweepings of a butcher's back premises". But, his efforts did not stop there. Russell extended his sympathy even to the captive natives of the time of British colonization of Tasmania. He described in great detail the merciless treatment the British forces used against native captives. One such description so horrifically described was the story of Lalla Rookh of Tasmania, a Tasmanian girl who had watched her mother get butchered by the British settlers, her sisters raped and captured, and the men of her family shot dead in front of her. The horrors for Lalla only continued as she was taken on a convict ship sailing to Australia, all of which Russell was a witness. The Owl, a Birmingham newspaper, wrote the following:The poor wretches were treated like beasts and flogged unmercifully, and their fearful experiences on an outward bound convict ship, so vividly painted by William Clark Russell, were but foretastes of the horrors awaiting them in the penal colonies of Australia. Though this did little to halt the brutish treatment by the British colonizers, Russell's empathy towards those captive people helped to record and reveal the atrocity committed by the British people.

During his last two decades Russell became progressively more disabled by arthritis, generally regarded as a legacy of his years at sea as a youth – "the sailor's enemy", as The Manchester Guardian stated.