Dudley Pope

Dudley Pope (29 December 1925 - 25 April 1997) was a British writer of both nautical fiction and history, most notable for his Lord Ramage series of historical novels.

He was born in Ashford, Kent, and at age 16 joined the merchant navy as a midshipman. His ship was torpedoed the next year (1942), and he was invalided out. Pope then went to work for a Kentish newspaper, then moved to the London Evening News in 1944, where he was the naval and defence correspondent.

His first book, Flag 4, was published in 1954, followed by several other historical accounts. C. S. Forester, the creator of the famed Hornblower novels, encouraged Pope to add fiction to his repertoire, and in 1965, Ramage appeared, the first of what was to become an 18-novel series.

He took to living on boats, first in Italy in 1959 with a 42-foot ketch, then in 1963 moving to Barbados on a cutter, and in 1968 a 54-foot wooden yacht named Ramage, aboard which he wrote all of his stories until 1985.