Letter of Marque
In command of his beloved Surprise, but in a civilian capacity, Jack Aubrey must navigate a world apart from anything he has previously known, his friend Stephen Maturin at his side. Together they embark on a voyage which, if successful, might just restore Aubrey to the rank, and the raison d'etre, whose loss he so much regrets.
Fate is fickle and few people can ever truly be trusted, but has Jack Aubrey’s luck run out?
‘Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.’
JAMES HAMILTON‐PATERSON
‘My hero is Patrick O’Brian. It’s basically impossible to write that well.’
DAVID MAMET
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.