Literary critic Humphrey Van Weyden is pressed into service aboard a seal-hunting schooner by its cruel, ruthless, but intelligent captain.

A young sea apprentice finds himself in charge of a ship, which is led astray to a land where the slave trade abounds.

A Scottish lord and lady set off on a quest to find and rescue the shipwrecked Captain Grant.

A record of the ill-fated voyage of the Chancellor as told by one of the passengers.