I honestly can’t remember if Forester makes a deal about women being in the ship or not. I know it was a plot point in The Happy Return that having a lady (that is, a female member of the gentry) on board a warship was undesireable - but that was because his ship was in an unusual location: the Pacific coast of South America, facing a long and difficult journey back to Europe, presumably feasting on wheevly biscuit and water green with gunk by the end of it, not to mention the possibility of going into action.
Also, a frigate was a small and overcrowded warship. Having a lady on board meant serious inconvenience, as she would expect a cabin, and not simply bunk with a bunch of sailors. In the book, she gets his cabin.
It wasn’t as if he was the captain of a ship of the line, asked to help ferry a friend’s wife to somewhere in the Med.
On top of all those points there was also the part Forester wrote about sailors being superstitious and they thought a woman on board would bring calamity to the ship (the actress who posed as the Duchess in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower certainly almost did by not knowing when to keep her voice down). O’Brian wrote the bit Eleanor of Aquitaine brought up about women using all the fresh water for less-than-warlike purposes.
That doesn’t especially address the fact of whether women aboard the ship as role of wife, washer, and child-tender was historically accurate, since the books are fiction and aren’t an actual historical source. Forester never mentioned a woman ever being on board in that fashion, O’Brian did. I wanted to know which was more likely and I rather like the idea Smeghead put forward, though Forester rather omitted the idea entirely rather than make a point of having Hornblower rebuff a married warrant officer from letting his wife aboard.
It seems likely that any superstition of women being unlucky to a ship was entirely confined to the merchant marine — perhaps for many centuries — and probably to the more numerous smaller shipping ( I may have read once it was pretended as an excuse to keep wives from coming along ). How this could be reconciled with the fact that in Europe passenger transports from at least Roman times to the great 20th century Liners would always carry ladies along for money is unimaginable. Of course, guaranteeing the safety of any woman would not be always possible, but usually sailors knew their place. Many were brutish, but not necessarily brutal.
( I don’t know if muslim ships carried females as passengers, considering their more traditional views on the sex, but I would have thought they’d have to if they were going to Mecca. )
Even so, the semi-nautical short stories of the great W. W. Jacobs, dealing admittedly with small craft, mainly coasters and barges, indicated by the late 19th century wives went aboard at will.
His American contemporary Joseph C. Lincoln may have dealt with still smaller ships ( as far as I recall ) but it’s doubtful even the most superstitious captain could prevail against his battleaxes if they wanted to step aboard.
There’s a book that might have some answers: Women Sailors & Sailors’ Women: An Untold Maritime History, by David Cordingly. “A fascinating survey of the role of women on shore and at sea during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.” I have a copy, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. There’s a blurb on the back cover from O’Brian.
Hmm, it seems to be the same book as Heroines and Harlots: Women at Sea in the Great Age of Sail. And also *Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors’ Wives. * Some trouble deciding on a catchy title, apparently.
I love Hornblower books, and have never been able to read the O’Brian… I get bogged down in 'em, somehow. I’ve tried three times, no luck.
I like the Ioan Gruffudd shows well enough, but I was annoyed at the first. The wonderful duel scene, which Forster treats so wonderfully and it so encapsulates Hornblower that he sets up a 50/50 gamble because he knows he can’t defeat the bully in a regular duel which got totally ruined by the TV show.
Two of Austen’s brothers became admirals. The movie of Persuasion ends with our heroine accompanying her dashing captain to sea.
Stephanie Barron has written a series starring Jane Austen, Detective; they aren’t perfect but have their charms. Several of the books have naval themes, although Jane remains onshore. The mysteries often involve those damn Frenchies.
Alas, Miss Austen didn’t live long enough to write many novels, yet they continue to be adapted for big screen & small. The Barron books might offer new material-- Austenish with a bit of derring-do.
Sorry for the bit of frivolity. I do have the O’Brien books in my future–and perhaps ought not mention my inspiration…
Another book on my long list of things to read one day is [Jane Austen and the Navy](demonstrates clearly the importance of the navy both in Jane Austen’s life and her novels.), by Brian Southam, which supposedly “demonstrates clearly the importance of the navy both in Jane Austen’s life and her novels.”
Since you did mention it - I really like Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books, too. They are Horatio Hornblower meets Dragonriders of Pern, which sounds ridiculous, but they’re good. Novik is a fan of Austen and O’Brian, and she’s good with the Napoleonic period.
Re: women on board, there’s a bit in one of the later Aubrey/Maturin books, I think one of the last two, where one (not career Navy) character expresses surprise about a woman on board (wife of the Gunner or something) and another delivers a short lecture on the different ways it was acceptable and common to have a woman on board. [Apart from, of course, a Lady as a passenger].
When I read it, it was gratuitous enough to come across as an Author’s Lecture To The Reader On Actual Historical Practices. Which is pretty rare for O’Brian; he generally prefers to let the reader puzzle things out; the more interesting thing was finding it after a dozen or more books in the series, some of which I think did make a big deal about women on board. Together with the semi-gratuitous emphasis on the woman in question when focusing on crew reactions or situations, I got the impression that the actual roles of women on board in that time period had been a surprise to O’Brian, too, and one that he only discovered after writing most of the series, and he made a deal out of it at that point partially to correct himself.
