Jean Antoine René Édouard Corbière (1 April 1793 in Brest – 27 September 1875 in Morlaix) was a French sailor, shipowner, journalist and writer, considered to be the father of the French maritime novel. He was the father of poet Tristan Corbière.
Early years
The Corbière family originated in Valès, a hamlet in the Haut-Languedoc (now part of the commune of Le Bez, to the east of Castres, in the Tarn département). At the time of Édouard's birth his father was an infantry captain in the French Navy - his mother, Jeanne-Renée Dubois, had been born at Morlaix in 1768. Édouard was the third of four children.
On his father's death in 1802, the young Édouard had no choice but to enter the navy to provide a family income. He became a mousse in 1804, a novice in 1806, and an aspirant in 1807 before being captured by the British on 8 May 1811. He was a prisoner on parole at Tiverton, Devon, until November 1811 when he was sent to Stapleton Prison near Bristol. He was repatriated to France because of ill-health in July 1812. He was ejected from the navy on the Bourbon Restoration due to his liberal views and started writing pamphlets, leading him into several stand-offs with the law, firstly at Brest in 1819 due to his writings in La Guêpe, then at Rouen in 1823 in La Nacelle. The latter forced him to become a sailor again, this time in the merchant navy. He sailed for ten years as a long-distance captain of the Nina (an old three-master captured from the British), mainly between Le Havre and Martinique.
