Just Finished Reading: The Blockade Runners by Jules Verne

As the economic consequences of the Union blockade of Confederate ports starts to bite Glasgow businessman James Playfair proposes a daring plan to his father. As the dockyards are world renown for their shipbuilding skills he will commission them to build a fast ironclad steamer capable of running the blockade to deliver much needed armaments into Charleston harbour and return with a fortune in cotton. With an eager crew and the best technology money can buy the voyage is all but certain to return a fine profit. But it quickly becomes apparent that two of the newest crew members are not what they at first appeared to be. A self advertised ‘old-hand’ turns out to be a landlubber and his young assistant turns out to be a woman in disguise. When called to explain herself she tells a story of her father languishing in a Confederate jail and her wish to free him in any way possible. Begging James’s assistance in the matter he soon sees it as a matter of personal honour to see to his release no matter the consequences to his original mission.

This was actually the book, seen advertised in my usual Sunday paper over breakfast, which started my interest in the Confederate navy in particular and the transition from wood and sail to iron and steam in general. The book itself is, sadly, nothing very special. At a mere 92 pages it is more of an outline of a novel than a novel in itself – even a short one. The story is sparse in the extreme and the characterisation barely deserves the name. The only section of the book which made me sit up and take notice was the dramatic entry into Charleston harbour and the outwitting of the Union warships and the even more dramatic escape from the harbour under fire from both Union and Confederate forces! What I found more interesting in this particular volume was a 23 page discussion of the Geographical and Historical context of the novel by Professor Ian Thompson which gave a great deal of detail of both Glasgow and Charleston at the time of the novel (published in 1865) as well as a discussion of the real, rather than fictional, blockade runners.

This was a Verne book I had never heard of prior to the paper article and, despite being easy to read, it didn’t really do very much for me. Saying that it certainly hasn’t put me off reading more of his well known works.