Showing results by author "Patrick O'Brian" in All Categories

Napoleon, escaped from Elba, pursues his enemies across Europe like a vengeful phoenix. If he can corner the British and Prussians before their Russian and Austrian allies arrive, his genius will lead the French armies to triumph at Waterloo. In the Balkans, preparing a thrust northwards into Central Europe to block the Russians and Austrians, a horde of Muslim mercenaries is gathering.

Accompanied by his friend, ship’s surgeon and spy Stephen Maturin, Captain Jack Aubrey has returned home to England and the life of a country gentleman. But their comfortable experience is cut short when Jack is made a pauper overnight. He flees to the continent, narrowly escaping debtor’s prison, only to find himself a hunted fugitive from Napoleon’s regime as, yet again, war looms.

Jack Aubrey and his old friend Dr Maturin are sailing on a secret mission with a hand-picked crew, most of them shipmates from the adventures and lucrative voyages of earlier years.

Captain Bligh, of Bounty fame, is now governor of New South Wales and facing mutiny anew, having lost the support of local settlers. Jack Aubrey is commissioned to come to his rescue. With a beautiful but dangerous spy on board, along with an unwelcome hold full of convicts, and war with America brewing, can Captain Jack Aubrey reach Australia in one piece?

Widely regarded as the most engaging historical novels ever written, the 21 books in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series have garnered millions of fans since the publication of the first volume over 50 years ago. Included here are BBC radio adaptations of the first seven thrilling stories.

At the opening of a voyage filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are in pursuit of a privateer sailing under American colours through the Great South Sea. Stephen's objective is to set the revolutionary tinder of South America ablaze to relieve the pressure on the British government which has blundered into war with the young and uncomfortably vigorous United States. The shock and barbarity of hand-to-hand fighting are sharpened by O'Brian's exact sense of period, his eye for landscape and his feel for a ship under sail.

Newly promoted to command of his first ship, Captain Jack Aubrey, along with his crew, and new friend and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin, must patrol a Mediterranean fraught with peril but rich with rewards. A glimpse of white sails on the horizon could mean a prize to be taken – or a fight for survival.

The story picks up from the end of Blue at the Mizzen when Jack Aubrey receives the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. This new novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of O’Brian’s death, would have been a chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. As the novel opens, we are able to visit these friends we have followed so very far in a rare state of almost perfect felicity.

As in The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore tells the tale of another ill-fated ship on Anson’s expedition round the world – the Wager. Parted from her squadron in the fearful storms off Cape Horn, the Wager struggles on alone up the ironbound coast of Chile, before she is driven onto rocks and sinks. The survivors include Jack Byron, a midshipman, and his eccentric protégé Toby, an alarmingly naive surgeon’s mate with a single-minded devotion to zoology.

On half-pay and without a command, Captain Jack Aubrey is stranded at home in an over-crowded cottage with his large and frequently bad-tempered family. When Jack has almost given up hope of ever returning to sea, Stephen Maturin, ship's doctor, occasional intelligence agent, and Jack's closest friend, brings secret orders that Jack is to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a Commodore's pennant.

Racing against time, Captain Jack Aubrey and his crew must chase the USS Norfolk as she rounds Cape Horn, pursuing her into the Great South Sea and beyond. Following the equator, ahead of them lies not only the natural wonders of the Galapagos but also a succession of disasters – men overboard, castaways, typhoons, shipwrecks, to say nothing of murder and criminal insanity.

Summoned from his medical practice in China by a bevy of anxious aunts, Alain Roig returns to his Catalan hometown to discover he has been nominated by family members with vested interests in the ancestral property to prevent an impending marriage between his cold, ascetic cousin Xavier and Madeleine, a quiet, introspective village girl of unusual beauty. As Alain seeks to understand his cousin's complex motivations for wooing the unhappy girl, he is slowly drawn into Xavier's dark crisis of faith, the well-worn pattern of the sleepy Catalan days and the tight circle of village gossip.

Ordered home by despatch vessel, Captain Jack Aubrey and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin have been tasked with bringing the news of the latest victory in the war with America back to the government in Britain. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought upon the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attentions of two privateers who pursue their ship soon become menacing.

Jack Aubrey’s long service has at last been rewarded with promotion to the rank of commodore, and a squadron of ships to command. His new commission is twofold – first, inhibit the slave trade off the coast of West Africa, and then, on his return, intercept a French fleet loaded with weapons intended for the disaffected Irish.

In the fight against the French, a treaty with the Sultan of Pulo Prabang, a piratical Malay state, may prove decisive. Captain Jack Aubrey and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin, along with a hand-picked crew, must survive the dangers of the high forties and convey a diplomatic envoy to ensure this key alliance, but dangers, both natural and man-made, will dog their every move.

En route to England and his next command, Captain Jack Aubrey, and his friend, ship’s surgeon and secret agent Stephen Maturin, find themselves swept up in the War of 1812. As Aubrey convalesces from his wounds in a Boston hospital, awaiting the next prisoner exchange, Maturin’s past activities as a spy return to haunt him and precipitate both men into new and unexpected dangers.

As he sails away from Port Jackson, Captain Jack Aubrey feels nothing but relief at leaving the penal colony and its inhabitants far behind. But, unknown to him, hidden among his crew is one Clarissa Oakes. With Britain at war on two fronts, with both America and France, Aubrey’s orders are to make for the Sandwich Islands and intervene in the conflict there.

Leaving behind them a Europe still taking stock after the definitive battle of Waterloo, Jack Aubrey and his friend Stephen Maturin set sail for Chile. But even with the newly minted peace, life at sea remains beset with danger and imminent disaster, and the political turmoil of the South American continent is equal to any threat they have yet faced.

With a beleaguered Britain already facing war on two fronts – against Napoleon’s armies in Europe but also against the young and vigorous United States – the objective of ship’s surgeon and spy Stephen Maturin is to light the touch paper of Peruvian revolutionary fervour, all while Captain Jack Aubrey engages with their many and varied enemies at sea.

Patrick O’Brian is acclaimed as one of the greatest historical novelists of the twentieth century, celebrated throughout the world for his masterful roman fleuve, the Aubrey‒Maturin series. But he was also a prolific writer of short stories, and it is in this form that he first made his mark. Encompassing stories written in his unvarnished youth to tales told by a seasoned traveller, this is the most comprehensive collection of O’Brian’s short fiction ever published. It is a treasure chest, containing more than sixty tales, including rarities, uncollected works, and forgotten jewels.