Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England Rattlin the Reefer, by Edward Howard, and edited by Captain Marryat. ________________________________________________________________________ Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848. He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still in print. Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the invention of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day's work, he never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary genius. "Rattlin The Reefer" was published in 1838, the twelfth book to flow from Marryat's pen. It had been written by Edward Howard, but needed a good deal of polishing before it could be published, which Marryat did. There is distinctly more flowery language than was normal with Marryat, and there are many long and unusual words that are not found elsewhere in Marryat's work. There is also a great use of Latin phrases to describe the action, most of which, fortunately, are little more than dog-Latin (i.e. the meaning can easily be decried). This e-text was transcribed in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and was reformatted in 2003, and again in 2005. ________________________________________________________________________ RATTLIN THE REEFER, BY EDWARD HOWARD, AND EDITED BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT. CHAPTER ONE. I BEGIN A LIFE WITHOUT A SIMILITUDE WITH A SIMILE--START OFF WITH FOUR HORSES--AND, FINALLY, I MAKE MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON ANY STAGE, UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE "CROWN." In the volume I am going to write, it is my intention to adhere rigidly to the truth--this will be _bona fide_ an autobiography--and, as the public like novelty, an autobiography without an iota of fiction in the whole of it, will be the greatest novelty yet offered to its fastidiousness. As many of the events which will be my province to record, are singular and even startling, I may be permitted to sport a little moral philosophy, drawn from the kennel in Lower Thames Street, which may teach my readers to hesitate ere they condemn as invention mere matters of absolute, though uncommon fact.