Marryat, English novelist who began writing after a distinguished career in the British Navy. The book begins: Those who may be pleased to honor these pages with a perusal, will not be detained with a long introductory history of my birth, parentage, and education. The very title implies that, at this period of my memoirs, I was ignorant of the two first; and it will be necessary for the due development of my narrative that I allow them to remain in the same state of bliss; for in the perusal of a tale, as well as in the pilgrimage of life, ignorance of the future may truly be considered as the greatest source of happiness. The little that was known of me at this time I will however narrate as concisely, and as correctly, as I am able.