The New York Dime Library No. 1085

"The Ocean Rivals: A Companion Story to Sibyl, the Sea Siren" by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham features two interconnected narratives. The opening depicts a dramatic naval battle between two American schooners: a disciplined pursuer under Captain Moncrief and a damaged, fleeing vessel whose young captain shoots himself rather than surrender. Twenty years earlier, Sir Norman Hurst abandons his English title and castle with his wife Sibyl, faking their deaths by setting their yacht adrift during a gale. They escape across the Atlantic aboard a brig, intending anonymity in America and leaving the baronetcy to his quarrelsome brothers Rafael and Bianca, whom Norman suspects poisoned their son. In America, Hurst establishes himself as a gentleman farmer and sea merchant on an unnamed island, building wealth and a grand estate—the facade of respectable American life masking his aristocratic origins.