The Riddle of the Sands

⚖The case for it

Two men sailing in the German Frisian islands discover secret preparations for an invasion of England. The first modern spy novel, written 11 years before WWI began. Extraordinarily prophetic; the sailing scenes are genuinely beautiful. Childers was executed for Irish Republican activities in 1922. The novel has outlasted his politics.

— the canon

✕The case against

Childers assumes you can read a tide table. Long stretches are pure pilotage, bearings and sandbanks and kedging off at low water, with foldout charts the modern paperback usually omits. The spying takes ages to start; Clara Dollmann is a romance subplot conducted by semaphore; and the whole engine is Edwardian invasion panic, patriotism with a barometer.

— the honest librarian