1800. Napoleon Bonaparte is the biggest threat to peace yet seen.
Newly promoted to command of his first ship, Captain Jack Aubrey, along with his crew, and new friend and shipโs 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 โ or a fight for survival.
โIn Aubrey and Maturin, Patrick OโBrian has created two of the most enjoyable characters in twentieth-century fiction. One of the greatest authors to sail with.โ
MICHAEL PALIN
โThere are two types of people in the world: Patrick O'Brian fans, and people who haven't read him yet.โ
LUCY EYRE, Guardian
Patrick OโBrian 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 AubreyโMaturin 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.