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Rudloe, Jack
by Dennis Berthold (2000) RUDLOE, JACK [J.] (1943- ). Born in New York, Jack Rudloe moved to Florida as a boy and began his self-education as a marine biologist. In 1964 he founded the Gulf Coast Specimen Company of Panacea, Florida, which collects marine specimens for laboratories around the world. A few years later he began…
Read MoreRowson, Susanna H.
by Philip Barnard (2000) ROWSON, SUSANNA H[ASWELL]. (1762-1824). Born in Portsmouth, England, Susanna H. Rowson became an actress, educator, prolific writer in several genres, and notably the author of Charlotte Temple (1791), America’s first best-selling novel. Rowson’s father, William Haswell, was a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, and her childhood and adolescence were marked by…
Read MoreRobertson, Morgan
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) ROBERTSON, MORGAN (1861-1915). Son of a Great Lakes captain, Morgan Robertson was born in Oswego, New York, on Lake Ontario. He wrote popular sea fiction with the authoritative voice of an expert seaman. Sailing from 1877 to 1886, he first shipped out on a Great Lakes vessel before exploring the oceans.…
Read MoreRoberts, Kenneth
by Lawrence I. Berkove (2000) ROBERTS, KENNETH [LEWIS] (1885-1957). Chronicling the lives of Maine coastal families in most of his distinguished historical novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Kenneth Roberts acquired and put to use an impressive and detailed knowledge of nautical matters. Even when most of the action takes place on land, as…
Read MoreRoark, Garland (“George Garland”)
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) [ROARK, GARLAND], “GEORGE GARLAND” (1904-1985). Born in Groesbeck, Texas, Garland Roark spent the first two decades of his work life on the advertising staffs of various retail stores in Texas, promoting everything from groceries to jewelry. In 1946 he launched a new career as a writer of popular fiction with the publication…
Read MoreRingbolt, Captain (John Codman)
Riley, James
by Daniel E. Williams (2000) RILEY, JAMES (1777-1840). While on a voyage from Gibraltar to the Cape Verde Islands during the summer of 1815, Captain James Riley and his crew of the brig Commerce were shipwrecked on the barren coast of the western Sahara, where they were soon enslaved by wandering Bedouins. The Americans were bought…
Read MoreRiesenberg, Felix
by Bert Bender (2000) RIESENBERG, FELIX (1879-1939). Felix Riesenberg was one of the most important figures in American literature of the sea during the 1920s and 1930s; his literary contributions were preceded by many years of first-hand sea experience during the final transitional years from sail to steam. Following the example of his father, a German…
Read MoreRicketts, Edward F.
by Susan F. Beegel (2000) RICKETTS, EDWARD F[LANDERS]. (1897-1948). Edward F. Ricketts, marine biologist and ecologist, was John Steinbeck’s collaborator on Sea of Cortez (1941) and the model for “Doc,” protagonist of Steinbeck’s Monterey novels Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954), and for “Friend Ed,” one of four principal characters in Steinbeck’s play-novelette Burning…
Read MoreRichard, Mark
by Hugh Egan (2000) RICHARD, MARK (1955- ). Author of the sea novel Fishboy (1993), Mark Richard (pronounced ree-SHARD) has been, at different times in his life, disc jockey, newspaperman, photographer, and private investigator. As a young man, Richard took time off from his study of journalism at Washington and Lee University to work on fishing…
Read MoreRich, Adrienne
by Claire J. Keyes (2000) RICH, ADRIENNE [CECILE] (1929-2012). The author of twenty books of poems and four prose works, Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore. “Diving into the Wreck” (1972), a poem frequently anthologized, contains her fullest, most dramatic reference to the sea. In this poem, the speaker gives up her old notions of power…
Read MoreRice, Elmer
by Brian T. Carney (2000) RICE, ELMER (1892-1967). Born Elmer Reizenstein, the playwright Elmer Rice is best known for his realistic and expressionistic dramas of urban life. However, he turned to the sea for two of his plays. Between Two Worlds (first perf. 1934; pub. 1935) takes place on the S.S. Farragut, traveling from New York…
Read MoreReynolds, J. N.
by Peter F. deCataldo (2000) REYNOLDS, J[EREMIAH]. N. (1799?-1858). Details of the life of J. N. Reynolds are sketchy, and his lingering reputation today is mainly the result of his influence upon major works of Edgar Allan Poe (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym [1838]) and Herman Melville (Moby-Dick [1851]). Reynolds, who was born in Cumberland…
Read MoreRatigan, William O.
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) RATIGAN, WILLIAM 0. (1910-1984). Born to a Great Lakes steamboat engineer in Detroit and later adopted by an Ottawa tribe chief, William Ratigan called Michigan his home. This Great Lakes historian’s writings celebrate ordinary Americans who made big names for themselves. His books are seasoned with Lakes poetry, often his…
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