Book description
Edward Pellew, captain of the legendary Indefatigable, was quite
simply the greatest frigate captain in the age of sail. An
incomparable seaman, ferociously combative yet chivalrous, a master of
the quarterdeck and an athlete of the tops, he was as quick to welcome
a gallant foe into his cabin as to dive to the rescue of a man
overboard. He is the likely model for the heroic but all-too-human
Jack Aubrey in Patrick O'Brian's novels. Pellew was orphaned at eight,
but fought his way from the very bottom of the Navy to fleet command
and a viscountcy. Victories and eye-catching feats won him a public
following. Yet as an outsider with a gift for antagonizing his
better-born peers, he made powerful enemies. Redemption came with his
last command, when he set off to do battle with the Barbary States and
free thousands of European slaves. Contemporary opinion held this to
be an impossible mission, and Pellew himself, in leading from the
front in the style of his direct contemporary Nelson, did not expect
to survive. Pellew's humanity as much as his gallantry, fondness for
subordinates and blind love for his family, and the warmth and
intimacy of his letters, make him a hugely engaging and sympathetic
figure. In Stephen Taylor's magnificent new life he at last has the
biography he deserves.
Stephen Taylor grew up in South Africa, and now works for The
Times. He is the author of several celebrated books on Africa,
incuding The Mighty Nimrod and Livingstone's Tribe: A Journey from
Zanzibar to the Cape. The Caliban Shore was called 'a wonderful book,
hugely satisfying on many levels' by Paul Theroux and his most recent
book, Storm and Conquest, was called 'a triumph . . . a ripping yarn
founded on original research' in the Guardian.
