''The Cruiser'' is a novel of war at sea by

Warren Tute Warren Tute (1914–1989) was an English sailor, author and television executive. He was born in 1914 in West Hartlepool, County Durham in the north of England and joined the Royal Navy in 1932, at one time serving on . During the Second World W ...

. It follows the story of HMS ''Antigone'', a fictional British of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

named after the mythical Greek character

Antigone ANTIGONE (Algorithms for coNTinuous / Integer Global Optimization of Nonlinear Equations), is a deterministic global optimization solver for general Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programs (MINLP). History ANTIGONE is an evolution of GloMIQO, a global ...

. The novel paints a realistic picture of life on a cruiser in the late 1930s and early war years: the principal character is the ship herself, with many members of her crew (from the captain to the "three fat men of the sea") as supporting actors. The author had served on , a real ''Leander''-class cruiser, during the 1930s. Published in 1955, ''The Cruiser'' ran to three editions in a matter of weeks. HMS ''Antigone'' is not to be confused with HMS ''Antigone'' of the Nathaniel Drinkwater series by

Richard Woodman Captain Richard Martin Woodman LVO MNM (10 March 1944 – 2 October 2024) was an English merchant navy officer, novelist and naval historian. Woodman served at sea mainly working for Trinity House and retired in 1997 from a 37-year nautical c ...

References

Ottawa Citizen review

Historic Naval Fiction
Novels set during World War II 1955 British novels Leander-class cruisers (1931) English novels Novels set on ships Cassell (publisher) books {{1950s-WWII-novel-stub