Commodore
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.
But will the conflict of loyalties be insurmountable for his friend, and Irishman, Stephen Maturin?
‘His novels are . . . as delicately perceptive about the human condition as the Jane Austen novels that O’Brian himself so much admired.’
CHRISTINA HARDYMENT, Independent
‘One of the most brilliantly sustained pieces of historical fictional writing this century.’
JAMES TEACHER, Spectator
Patrick O’Brian was born in 1914 and published his first book, Caesar, when he was only fifteen. In the 1960s he began work on the idea that, over the next four decades, evolved into the twenty-novel long Aubrey–Maturin series (with an extra unfinished volume published posthumously). In 1995 he was awarded the CBE, and in 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He died in January 2000 at the age of 85.