Awards

• Winner of Heywood Hill Literary Prize 1995
• Winner of Heywood Hill Literary Prize 1995.

Overview

Entrusted with a secret mission, the perils of the South China Sea await. 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. When echoes of the past return, no one is safe. ‘If Jane Austen had written rousing sea yarns, she would have produced something very close to the prose of Patrick O'Brian.' Time ‘Written with the most engaging enthusiasm that can’t fail to give pleasure to anybody who enjoys historical adventure flavoured with more than a dash of realism.’ Sunday Times

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9780006499282

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Reviews

'...full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein... Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.' James Hamilton- Paterson 'You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.' Kevin Myers, Irish Times 'In a highly competitive field it goes straight to the top. A real first-rater.' Mary Renault 'I never enjoyed a novel about the sea more. It is not only that the author describes the handling of a ship of 1800 with an accuracy that is as comprehensible as it is detailed, a remarkable feat in itself. Mr O'Brian's three chief characters are drawn with no less depth of sympathy than the vessels he describes, a rare achievement save in the greatest writers of this genre. It deserves the widest readership.' Irish Times

Norton's admirable attempt to achieve for O'Brian in this country at least some semblance of the success he has enjoyed in England continues apace with the release of this 13th adventure of Captain Jack Aubrey and his crew of British seamen during the Napoleonic Wars, in conjunction with trade paperback reprintings of two earlier books in the series (H.M.S. Surprise, The Mauritius Command). At this stage in his career, Aubrey commands the Surprise, a private man-of-war licensed to do battle with enemy warships on behalf of the Crown. He remains a man whose great capabilities and raw energy while at sea are often nullified by an inability to cope while on land, and so it is that captain and crew set sail most precipitously for South America after a lengthy stay ashore, at least in part so that Jack will make no social or political errors that might set back his efforts to be restored to the Royal Navy. Aboard as always is Dr. Stephen Maturin - Aubrey's closest friend, ship's surgeon, and British spy - the character who provides an intellectual counterpoint to Jack's more physical presence. While the Surprise goes on its appointed rounds, however, Aubrey and Maturin undertake another assignment - delivering a British envoy to the Malaysian Islands to negotiate a treaty there in competition with the French (a mission that, happily, requires that Jack's precious Navy rank be returned him). The story's the thing, of course, but the ultimate appeal of the Aubrey/Maturin adventures lies in O'Brian's delicious old-fashioned prose, the wonderfully complex sentences that capture the feel of the sea and the culture of the great warships, all the while sketching with apparent accuracy and truth the early-19th-century world. (Kirkus Reviews)

'!full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein! Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.' James Hamilton- Paterson 'You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.' Kevin Myers, Irish Times 'In a highly competitive field it goes straight to the top. A real first-rater.' Mary Renault 'I never enjoyed a novel about the sea more. It is not only that the author describes the handling of a ship of 1800 with an accuracy that is as comprehensible as it is detailed, a remarkable feat in itself. Mr O'Brian's three chief characters are drawn with no less depth of sympathy than the vessels he describes, a rare achievement save in the greatest writers of this genre. It deserves the widest readership.' Irish Times

Author Information

Patrick O’Brian, until his death in 2000, was one of our greatest contemporary novelists. He is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey–Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He is the author of many other books including Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime’s contribution to literature. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He lived for many years in South West France and he died in Dublin in January 2000.

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