Published during a time of rapid colonial expansion, Richard Doddridge Blackmore’s The Maid of Sker (1872) constitutes a conglomerate of fictional autobiography, historical and sensation novel. It takes the reader on a number of voyages to witness the most important British sea battles at the end of the eighteenth century. Considering the commencement of work on The Maid of Sker in the 1840s and the historical timeframe of the action itself, together with an elaborate portrayal of British national hero Lord Nelson, the novel provides a link for “the years between Trafalgar and the accession of Queen Victoria [when] romantic portraits of the navy provided moral exemplars for the domestic and imperial spheres” (Fulford 162). Depictions of coastal life and images of the sea are central to plot development and character description, and include many involuntary voyages across the sea.