Commander Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat RNVR was a UK novelist best known today for his sea stories, particularly The Cruel Sea (1951) and Three Corvettes (1942-45).

Born in Liverpool, Monsarrat was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. He intended to practise law. The law failed to inspire him, however, and he turned instead to writing supporting himself as a freelance writer for newspapers while writing four novels and a play in the space of five years (1934-1939). Monsarrat served in World War II, first as a member of an ambulance brigade and then as a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

He served with distinction in a series of small warships assigned to escort convoys. Monsarrat ended the war as commander of a frigate, and drew on his wartime experience in his postwar sea stories. He turned to writing full time in 1959, settling first on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, and later on the Mediterranean island of Gozo (Malta).