Captain Marryat's novel, Masterman Ready (1841), maintains a strong moral tone and didactic dialogue throughout this telling of the adventures of Masterman Ready and the Seagrave family. Captain Marryat began writing Masterman Ready in 1839 as a continuation of Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson at the request of his own children. However, Marryat apparently found Wyss's description of island survival so improbable that he ended up writing his own tale of shipwreck and survival. Here, the genteel Mr. Seagrave, the frequently indisposed Mrs. Seagrave and their four children: William, twelve, Tommy, six, Caroline 7 and Albert who is not yet one, sail on board the Pacific en route to the Seagrave's home in Australia. The Pacific runs into several storms and when the captain is struck unconscious, the ship's crew abandon the ship wholesale with the exception of the selfless Masterman Ready who elects to remain onboard the doomed vessel to help the Seagraves and their negro maid, Juno. Eventually, the weather clears and the prescient Ready leads the Seagraves to relative safety on a desert island where they seek food and shelter, survive several adventures and are even attacked by natives before being eventually rescued by fortunate reappearance of the recovered Captain of the Pacific. The first of Marryat's childrens books, Masterman Ready represents the tone of Marryat's works, matching romantic tales of shipwreck and survival with stern lessons to be good and have faith in God.