Edward Howard (novelist)

Edward Howard (baptised 1793 – 30 December 1841) was an English novelist and sub-editor of The Metropolitan Magazine. He then worked for New Monthly Magazine. His most successful books were Sir Henry Morgan and Rattlin the Reefer.

Howard entered the navy, where Captain Frederick Marryat was his shipmate. On obtaining his discharge he became a contributor of sea stories to periodical literature. When Marryat took the editorship of the Metropolitan Magazine in 1832, he chose Howard for his sub-editor. He subsequently joined the staff of the New Monthly Magazine, then edited by Thomas Hood. Howard died suddenly on 30 December 1841. His widow, Anne Roper Howard, remarried in 1841 Octavian Blewitt, secretary to the Royal Literary Fund.

His Rattlin the Reefer, 3 vols. London, 1836, a maritime novel, was marketed as "edited by the author of Peter Simple," and on this account was erroneously assigned to Marryat. Howard's other works, which were mostly issued as "by the author of Rattlin the Reefer," are:

• The Old Commodore, 3 vols. London, 1837.
• Outward Bound; or, a Merchant's Adventures, London, 1838.
• Memoirs of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, K.C.B., 2 vols. London, 1839.
• Jack Ashore, 3 vols. London, 1840.
• The Centiad: a Poem in four books, London, 1841.
• Sir Henry Morgan, the Buccaneer, 3 vols. London, 1842 (another edition 1857).
• The Marine Ghost, in Part i. of Tales from Bentley, 1859.