Navigation, Seamanship, and Naval Battles, Oh My
The folder where I keep my fic research is pretty big, and I keep looking at it and thinking, "why aren't I sharing this with other folks?" So here goes.
In particular, I come bearing riches from Google Books. Google Books is amazing, you guys. Thousands of books that were only ever published during the time period we're writing about, just sitting there, freely available. And they're all full-text searchable.
ETA: It's come to my attention that not all of these books are viewable in all parts of the world. If you want one of them and can't get it, e-mail me or leave a comment here, and I'll help you out.
A Compleat Treatise of Practical Navigation (1734) and The Practical Navigator (1791)
Two period navigation manuals that more or less bracket the time periods people usually choose to set POTC fic in. You'll see they're not dramatically different.
The Kedge-Anchor; or, Young Sailors' Assistant (1852) and Seamanship (1865)
To be taken with a grain of salt since they were published a hundred years after POTC is set, but oh my God, these books contain everything you could ever possibly want to know. If you can't get your hands on Seamanship in the Age of Sail by John Harland, you can make out pretty well with these. The Naval Officers' Guide for Preparing a Ship for Sea (1834) is also interesting, but harder to use because there's no table of contents.
Sailors' Language: A Collection of Sea-Terms and Their Definitions (1883) and Professional Recollections on Points of Seamanship, Discipline, &c. (1849)
More good seamanship books, but better for browsing; harder if you're in search of a specific piece of information.
The Law and Custom of the Sea, 1649-1767
Mostly stuff related to prizes and neutrality, but a lot of stuff about pirates. Jamaica's vice-admiralty court gets a number of mentions.
Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816
This is useful not just for seeing how ships communicated with each other in battle but for getting a feel for how battles were fought in general. Though if you really want the blow-by-blow of a naval battle, you need...
Battles of the British Navy and Logs of the Great Sea Fights, 1794-1805
The first is a statistic-heavy account of every single battle in British naval history up to 1799 (vol. 2 picks up from there). The second simply prints the ship logs of the ships involved in the Battle of the Nile and other important Napoleonic-era battles. Dear God, information overload.
England in the Seven Years' War (1907)
I have found this to be the single most useful book in writing about the Navy, because the chapter on the West Indies theater of the war breaks down the strategic situation in the Caribbean in exquisite detail. It even explains how pirates used the geography to their advantage. From this chapter, you can put together exactly how Norrington would have spent his time and how he'd have deployed his resources. You also get a sense for the hierarchy and bureaucracy on the West Indies stations.
Now, a couple websites:
Maritime History Virtual Archives
Holy cow, there is so much information here. There are a dozen or so seamanship glossaries, for instance, including ones in other languages, as well as sections on seamanship, gunnery, ship-building, provisions, naval history, etc. This is mostly primary source material.
Boy's Manual of Seamanship and Gunnery (1871)
paisley_katze pointed me to this one. Another seamanship manual, but more accessible and oriented toward how to live aboard a ship. Also, more about guns. Note the date, however.
Finally...does anybody not know the Online Etymology Dictionary? In the absence of an Oxford English Dictionary, it's the best anti-anachronism device I know. I also rely a lot on World Wide Words, which provides the same sort of information for phrases and expressions.
In particular, I come bearing riches from Google Books. Google Books is amazing, you guys. Thousands of books that were only ever published during the time period we're writing about, just sitting there, freely available. And they're all full-text searchable.
ETA: It's come to my attention that not all of these books are viewable in all parts of the world. If you want one of them and can't get it, e-mail me or leave a comment here, and I'll help you out.
A Compleat Treatise of Practical Navigation (1734) and The Practical Navigator (1791)
Two period navigation manuals that more or less bracket the time periods people usually choose to set POTC fic in. You'll see they're not dramatically different.
The Kedge-Anchor; or, Young Sailors' Assistant (1852) and Seamanship (1865)
To be taken with a grain of salt since they were published a hundred years after POTC is set, but oh my God, these books contain everything you could ever possibly want to know. If you can't get your hands on Seamanship in the Age of Sail by John Harland, you can make out pretty well with these. The Naval Officers' Guide for Preparing a Ship for Sea (1834) is also interesting, but harder to use because there's no table of contents.
Sailors' Language: A Collection of Sea-Terms and Their Definitions (1883) and Professional Recollections on Points of Seamanship, Discipline, &c. (1849)
More good seamanship books, but better for browsing; harder if you're in search of a specific piece of information.
The Law and Custom of the Sea, 1649-1767
Mostly stuff related to prizes and neutrality, but a lot of stuff about pirates. Jamaica's vice-admiralty court gets a number of mentions.
Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816
This is useful not just for seeing how ships communicated with each other in battle but for getting a feel for how battles were fought in general. Though if you really want the blow-by-blow of a naval battle, you need...
Battles of the British Navy and Logs of the Great Sea Fights, 1794-1805
The first is a statistic-heavy account of every single battle in British naval history up to 1799 (vol. 2 picks up from there). The second simply prints the ship logs of the ships involved in the Battle of the Nile and other important Napoleonic-era battles. Dear God, information overload.
England in the Seven Years' War (1907)
I have found this to be the single most useful book in writing about the Navy, because the chapter on the West Indies theater of the war breaks down the strategic situation in the Caribbean in exquisite detail. It even explains how pirates used the geography to their advantage. From this chapter, you can put together exactly how Norrington would have spent his time and how he'd have deployed his resources. You also get a sense for the hierarchy and bureaucracy on the West Indies stations.
Now, a couple websites:
Maritime History Virtual Archives
Holy cow, there is so much information here. There are a dozen or so seamanship glossaries, for instance, including ones in other languages, as well as sections on seamanship, gunnery, ship-building, provisions, naval history, etc. This is mostly primary source material.
Boy's Manual of Seamanship and Gunnery (1871)
paisley_katze pointed me to this one. Another seamanship manual, but more accessible and oriented toward how to live aboard a ship. Also, more about guns. Note the date, however.
Finally...does anybody not know the Online Etymology Dictionary? In the absence of an Oxford English Dictionary, it's the best anti-anachronism device I know. I also rely a lot on World Wide Words, which provides the same sort of information for phrases and expressions.