William Clark Russell was a writer of nautical novels, born in New York. He spent eight years at sea as a sailor, gaining the experience he would use in his fiction. After his years at sea, he turned to journalism, and was on the staff of New York's "Daily Chronicle" before he took to writing novels.
"The Frozen Pirate" is the story of Paul Rodney, a sailor who narrowly escapes death by shipwreck and exposure in the Straits of Magellan. Surmounting that peril, he faces another: Embedded in the Antarctic ice is an ancient vessel, filled with what seem to be frozen, contorted corpses. But the ship is a pirate ship, and the corpses aren't dead. When one of them revives, Rodney must fend off (and cooperate with, if he hopes to survive) one of the most bloodthirsty and black-hearted scoundrels ever to sail the seven seas!