This is book 1 in the Aubrey/Maturin series. Here is the maiden voyage of O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series, which follows the unique friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. O'Brian renders in riveting detail the life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson's navy: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle. - Publisher.
This is book 1 in the Aubrey/Maturin series. Here is the maiden voyage of O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series, which follows the unique friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. O'Brian renders in riveting detail the life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson's navy: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle. - Publisher.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the fourth book in the series. Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half-pay without a command -- until his friend, and occasional intelligence agent, Stephen Maturin, arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope, under a Commodore's pennant. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains -- Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity can push his crews to the verge of mutiny. Based on the actual campaign of 1810 in the Indian Ocean, O'Brian's attention to detail of eighteenth-century life ashore and at sea is meticulous. This tale is as beautifully written and as gripping as any in the series; it also stands on its own as a superlative work of fiction.
Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail to Australia with a hold full of convicts. On board is a beautiful and dangerous spy, and a treacherous disease which decimates the crew.
In The Letter of Marque, Jack is once again aboard his beloved Surprise but stripped of his post captaincy for a crime he did not commit. Bought by Stephen, the Surprise has become a privateer. Sailing into French waters, the two concoct a desperate mission which, if successful, may redeem Aubrey from his state of disgrace. A nighttime battle with an unusual climax, a jewel of great value and Stephen's fondness for opium make this segment of O'Brian's masterful series both original and profoundly exciting.
In this book the characters of Clarrisa Oakes, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin emerge more complex, sophisticated and wholly mature beings than ever before as they reflect on the past and try to divine the future - supported by the author's sense of human possibility.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. All twenty books are being re-issued by Harper Perennial with stunning new jackets.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. All twenty books are being re-issued by Harper Perennial with stunning new jackets.
Set in the days succeeding Napoleon's escape from Elba, where Aubrey and Maturin are in the thick of Europe's attempt to prevent the French Emperor from regaining his power, by attempting to turn Napoleon's secret link to the Islamic world against him.