Book description
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be
the greatest series of historical novels ever written. Now, for the
first time, they are available in electronic book format, so a whole new
generation of readers can be swept away on the adventure of a lifetime.
This is the twelfth book in the series.
Jack Aubrey is a naval officer, a post-captain of experience and
capacity. When The Letter of Marque opens he has been struck off the
Navy List for a crime he has not committed. With Aubrey is his friend
and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also an unofficial British
intelligence agent. Maturin has bought for Aubrey his old ship the
Surprise, so that the misery of ejection from the service can be
palliated by the command of what Aubrey calls a 'private man-of-war' - a
letter of marque, a privateer. Together they sail on a voyage which, if
successful, might restore Aubrey to the rank, and the raison d'etre,
whose loss he so much regrets.
Around these simple, ostensibly familar elements Patrick O'Brian has
written a novel of great narrative power, exploring his extraordinary
world once more, in a tale full of human feeling and rarely matched in
its drama. '…full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck
a vein… Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic
wars.' James Hamilton- Paterson
'You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian:
his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and
lightens the lives of those who read him.' Kevin Myers, Irish Times
'In a highly competitive field it goes straight to the top. A real
first-rater.' Mary Renault
'I never enjoyed a novel about the sea more. It is not only that the
author describes the handling of a ship of 1800 with an accuracy that is
as comprehensible as it is detailed, a remarkable feat in itself. Mr
O'Brian's three chief characters are drawn with no less depth of
sympathy than the vessels he describes, a rare achievement save in the
greatest writers of this genre. It deserves the widest readership.'
Irish Times Patrick O'Brian, until his death in 2000, was one of our
greatest contemporary novelists. He is the author of the acclaimed
Aubrey-Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He
is the author of many other books including Testimonies, and his
Collected Short Stories. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the
Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime's contribution to literature. In the
same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he received an honorary
doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He lived for many
years in South West France and he died in Dublin in January 2000.
