Doctor at Sea

Doctor in the House #2

by Richard Gordon

Chapter 1: It would be unfair to describe the Lotus as an unlucky ship. It was just that she was accident prone, like a big, awkward schoolgirl. Even her period of gestation in the ship- yard was full of mishaps. She was laid down in Wallsend in 1929, and had advanced to the shape of a huge picked chicken when the de- pression blew down bitterly on Tyneside. For the next four years she rusted untouched be- hind locked gates, and when they started work again her design was changed on the drawing-board from a North Atlantic ship to a Far East trader. Shortly afterwards the company ordering her went bankrupt and she was bought on the stocks by another, who began to turn her into a whaler. They too rap- idly slid into insolvency and abandoned her to a fourth, the Fathom Steamship Company of St. Mary Axe. It was this concern that suc- ceded in launching her, after she had been through as many fruitless changes in con- struction as a human embryo. At her launch she holed and almost sunk...

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Comedy

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Richard Gordon is the pen name used by Gordon Ostlere (born Gordon Stanley Ostlere on September 15, 1921), an English surgeon and anaesthetist. As Richard Gordon, Ostlere has written several novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He is most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House, and the subsequent film, television and stage adaptations. His The Alarming History of Medicine was published in 1993, and he followed this with The Alarming History of Sex.

Gordon worked as anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (where he was a medical student) and later as a ship's surgeon and as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He has published several technical books under his own name including Anaesthetics for Medical Students(1949); later published as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anaesthetics for Medical Students in 1989, Anaesthetics and the Patient (1949) and Trichlorethylene Anaesthesia (1953). In 1952, he left medical practice and took up writing full time. He has an uncredited role as an anesthesiologist in the movie Doctor in the House.

The early Doctor novels, set in the fictitious St Swithin's, a teaching hospital in London, were initially witty and apparently autobiographical; later books included more sexual innuendo and farce. The novels were very successful in Britain in Penguin paperback during the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Gordon also contributed to Punch magazine and has published books on medicine, gardening, fishing and cricket.

The film adaptation of Doctor in the House was released in 1954, two years after the book, while Doctor at Sea came out the following year with Brigitte Bardot. Dirk Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in both. The later spin-off TV series were often written by other well-known British comic performers.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have wanted to read the "Doctor" series for a long time. They were said to be hilarious - so I was a bit disappointed because this book was only moderately funny. However, the underplayed British humour is still very much there, and you would enjoy it if you are a fan of Jerome K. Jerome or Wodehouse.

Richard Gordon has only one way to escape from an unwanted marriage - sign on as a ship's doctor so that he can be away from England's shores for a sizeable period of time. He manages to do that, but finds out being on a ramshackle ship like the Lotus with a light-fingered assistant, a cantankerous curmudgeon of a captain, randy ship-mates and bent spoons and rusty forks to do an appendectomy is not exactly what he imagined his future would be like when he passed medical college. However, he survives and has an educational and entertaining trip to South America and back - educational for him and entertaining for us, the readers.

Good light reading when one needs a pick-me-up.

[Huw Collingbourne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very entertaining book in the Doctor series. I note that reviewers of several of Gordon's books complain that they are not as funny as they'd been expecting. Well, if you are looking for a laugh-out-loud comic novel, this would definitely not be a good choice. Gordon's style is mildly humorous rather than side-splitting. His books tend to take the form of loosely connected anecdotes with characters taken (and slightly exaggerated) from life. That is their joy. They tell stories from life but observed with an eye for the ludicrous. If you enjoy a simple, well-told story told in a light-hearted manner, this is for you.

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one my favourite books in the Doctor in the House series.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

New, marginally trained doctor escapes imminent marriage by signing on to a merchant ship as its medical officer. Gets schooled by a bunch of old salts. Amusing.

[Itai Gurira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious read with wonderful words, and description. first time i encountered the word insalubrious and alacrity :) as with the previous book in the trilogy a light, funny and well written book.

[Jeff Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Light hearted and full of one liners.

[Les Hopper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty funny, but certainly of its time.

I read the first in the series 20 years ago and enjoyed the vintage medical school larks.

The Dirk Bogarde films were good afternoon viewing on terrestrial TV back in the day.

This second book is a good light read, but some of the humour shows its age in ways that a modern author would (and should) cringe at a little.

[Millstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amiable account of Richard Gordon's usual likeable alter ego's adventures afloat as a ship's doctor on his maiden voyage with the Merchant Navy. Reads as a number of short stories rather than a novel which must have been handy for the TV adaptation. A very enjoyable 3*, with a few lovely turns of phrase and some entertaining words that required dictionary intervention.

[Carmelita Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining and funny in a bizarre and twisted way. A great way to lift the spirits and enjoy the shenanigans of the life of the Officers and Crew of a ship along with an exceptionally eccentric Captain. This poor doctor certainly got far more than he expected on his trip as the Ship's Doctor.

[Cliff Watt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Assumed this would have been about the newly qualified Dr Gordon and follow on from doctor in the house but it wasn’t. Slow start, not that easy to get into and not as funny. Did pick up about half way through though.

[Brett · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second of the ‘Doctor’ books is, again, more a series of anecdotes than a novel. Some are amusing, some are dated. Like the first book, it was left to the screenwriters to develop a plot when they adapted it.

[Chris Sherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book.
Gives rather interesting view on the merchant Navy.
Funny.

[Adele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Charting the progress of the young doctor, this time at Sea. Lightly amusing retelling of seafaring tales under Captain Hogg.

[Sonulik Slonikova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Harish Kabilan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. More about sailors and seafaring and less about medicine when compared to his other books. A thoroughly enjoyable book nevertheless.

[Marei · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a carry on film in book format.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.5/10

[Seb · Rating 3 out of 5]

War immernoch gut und Recht angenehm zu lesen, aber doch n gutes Stück schlechter als das erst Buch. Auch weniger lustig, aber von schlecht weit entfernt.

[theaddictedbookbee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was lighthearted and a fun romp! Perfect for a light read night

[Rahool Gadkari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comic read, will keep you in splits. Recommend for every Gordon fan.

[Dr.J.G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a long time since I read this series - the Doctor series by Richard Gordon - beginning with this one, and this one stands out in memory perhaps because it was the first one, unless it was because of the doctor who was fed up at the end of the first voyage in the job he took on a ship hoping for a cushy job, much money and hardly anything to do - which was all fine and true, only the captain's wife was seasick every morning, no matter what he gave her, regular as a clockwork, and he came off feeling a failure for being unable to cure her seasickness.

[Filip Alimpic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. Easy reads, but awesome story.

[Thierry Sportouche · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic of English humour.