Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin Series Author:Patrick O'Brian "The best sea story I have ever read."-Sir Francis Chichester. Patrick O'Brian's masterpiece, the Aubrey-Maturin series, follows the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Dr. Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. The series consists of 20 complete and one unfinished no... more »vel, the first published in 1970 and the last finished novel in 1999. The 21st novel of the series, left unfinished by O'Brian's death in 2000, appeared in print in late 2004. The series received considerable international acclaim and most of the novels reached the The New York Times Best Seller list. These novels comprised the canon of an author often compared to Jane Austen, C. S. Forester and a myriad of other British authors central to the canon. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war are faultless rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle. The Oscar-nominated 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is based upon these books.
"Some of you...have never read a Patrick O'Brian novel. I beseech you to start now. Start with Master and Commander, which should be available in paperback from your nearest bookseller. And if he-or she-does not have a copy, then beat the wretched fellow." - Kevin Myers, Irish Times
The series consists of: 1. Master & Commander 2. Post Captain 3. HMS Surprise 4. The Mauritius Command 5. Desolation Island 6. The Fortune of War 7. The Surgeon's Mate 8. The Ionian Mission 9. Treason's Harbour 10. The Far Side of the World 11. The Reverse of the Medal 12. The Letter of Marque 13. The Thirteen Gun Salute 14. The Nutmeg of Consolation 15. The Truelove 16. The Wine-Dark Sea 17. The Commodore 18. The Yellow Admiral 19. The Hundred Days 20. Blue at the Mizzen 21 The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey« less