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Master and Commander

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FIC6070
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Overview

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.

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Product Details

Part Number: FIC6070

Edition: 2010

Printed and corrected to: No

ISBN: 9780006499152

Publisher: Harper Collins

Author(s): Patrick O'Brian

Author: No

Format: Paperback

Set sail for the read of your life …

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.

Master and Commander is the first of Patrick O’Brian’s now famous Aubrey/Maturin novels, regarded by many as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. It establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey RN and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his secretive ship’s surgeon and an intelligence agent. It contains all the action and excitement which could possibly be hoped for in a historical novel, but it also displays the qualities which have put O’Brian far ahead of any of his competitors: his depiction of the detail of life aboard a Nelsonic man-of-war, of weapons, food, conversation and ambience, of the landscape and of the sea. O’Brian’s portrayal of each of these is faultless and the sense of period throughout is acute. His power of characterisation is above all masterly.

This brilliant historical novel marked the début of a writer who grew into one of our greatest novelists ever, the author of what Alan Judd, writing in the Sunday Times, has described as ‘the most significant extended story since Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time’

About Patrick O'Brian

Patrick O’Brian, one of our greatest contemporary novelists, is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey–Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. His first novel, ‘Testimonies’, and his ‘Collected Short Stories’ have recently been republished by HarperCollins. He has translated many works from French into English, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and the first volume of Jean Lacouture’s biography of Charles de Gaulle. 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 also awarded the CBE. In 1997 he was given an honorary doctorate of letters by Trinity College, Dublin. Patrick O’Brian lived for many years in south west France, and died in Dublin in January 2000.

Patrick O’Brian is best known for the Aubrey–Maturin series, acclaimed by Richard Snow in ‘The New York Times’ as ‘the best historical novels ever written’.