Valerie: An Autobiography

Valerie was published posthumously in a somewhat incomplete form after its magazine serialization. Valerie has been described as Japhet in petticoats. Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848) was an English Royal Navy officer, novelist, and a contemporary and acquaintance of Charles Dickens, noted today as an early pioneer of the sea story. He is now known particularly for the semi-autobiographical novel Mr. Midshipman Easy and his children’s novel The Children of the New Forest, and for a widely used system of maritime flag signaling, known as Marryat’s Code.