Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley

Cruel Seas is an annotated bibliography of fiction in English that involves civilian steamships of the merchant marine in works set during World War Two (or slightly before).  While the subtitle states "1930s to Present," the last entry was added in 2008, and the work will not be updated. 

The entries include novels, novellas, and short stories, but exclude poetry, theater plays, and fiction written for juveniles (unless the work can appeal to adults as well). Many of the works involve ships in convoy across the Atlantic.

An earlier version of Cruel Seas was published in softcover edition in 2004 by the Institute of Transportation Studies of the University of California, Berkeley, under the slightly different title of Cruel Seas: Merchant Shipping-Focused World War 2 Nautical Fiction, 1939 to 2004.

For an annotated bibliography of fiction in English that involves civilian steamships, 1845-2012 (so, not limited to fiction of World War Two), but excludes the works listed in Cruel Seas, see the author's Steamer Stories, published by Oak Knoll Press in 2016.