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Saturday 8 November 2014

Richard Hough's 'Buller' stories

When I began writing my recent blog entries about Philip McCutchan's HALFHYDE stories, I was reminded in a comment made by Legatus Hedlius that Richard Hough – a well-known naval historian – had also written a number of books set during the late Victorian and Edwardian era. A quick search on the Internet indicated that second-hand copies of these books were on sale ... so I bought them. (All the books I bought were withdrawn library books, and none of them cost me more than £0.50 plus postage ... which I regard as a bit of a bargain for hardback books!)

The books were:
BULLER'S GUNS


BULLER'S DREADNOUGHT


BULLERS' VICTORY


Richard Hough manages to tell a fictionalised version of the history of the Royal Navy from the 1870s until the 1920s by placing his main characters – Archie Buller and Rod McLewin – at or near the centre of the major events of that period ... and I must admit that it works rather well as a story-telling device.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading these three books, and they reminded me what a good writer Richard Hough was.

Amongst others, Richard Hough wrote the following non-fiction books that sit on my bookshelves:
  • THE FLEET THAT HAD TO DIE (about the Russo-Japanese War)
  • ADMIRALS IN COLLISION (the story of Admirals Tryon and Markham, and the sinking of HMS Victoria)
  • THE BIG BATTLESHIP (the story of the dreadnought battleship that was ordered as the Brazilian Rio de Janeiro, became the Turkish Sultan Osman I, and eventually ended up as HMS Agincourt)

4 comments:

  1. Have you read the two books by Antoine Vanner? Britannia's Wolf and Britannia's Reach. They are about a British naval officer named Dawlish. He has little influence, but highly placed people throw interesting work his way because he is really good at his job. In the first book he is assigned to the Ottoman Navy during the Russo Turkish War. I really enjoyed both books.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bob
    I don't any of those books, but have read the non-fiction books. They are well written and have a lot of good info in them. I agree with your recommendations.

    Cheers
    PD

    ReplyDelete
  3. William McHarg,

    I don't recognise the author's name or the titles of the books ... but after reading your brief outline of the plots, I will certainly see if I can get hold of copies.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peter Douglas,

    Richard Hough was a prolific and knowledgeable writer, and having so recently re-read some of his books, I hope to buy more of them as and when I see them.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete

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