When he expressed his desire to pursue a literary rather than a naval career, his father engineered his immediate assignment, before graduation, to a long voyage "to clear his head of nonsense".

After the three-year tour ended, by which time he was graduated ship-board and twice promoted to full ensign, he nonetheless resigned from the Navy, was disowned by his family, and embarked on his career as a writer in the liberal camp of 1860s Russia.

Recycling the same cast of characters and the same stock situations over and over, but each time from a slightly different point of view, over the following two decades he created an opus of sea yarns still read today.

The sea stories tell of kind captains and of cruel ones, of efficient first officers and of the indifferent, of idealistic lieutenants and the careerists, of terrible boatswains and of the harmless—though all curse throughout.

An admiral of ridiculous volatility makes several cameo appearances, stunning the officers, the crews, and the reader with his tantrums, and all else notwithstanding, with his deep love and respect for the sea and his charges.