Master and Commander OBrian, Patrick

The first volume of the Aubrey/Maturin novels introduces Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, ships surgeon and intelligence agent, in the age of the Napoleonic wars *Author: OBrian, Patrick *Series Title: Aubrey Maturin Series *Publication Date: 1994/11/01 *Number of Pages: 411 *Binding Type: Hardcover *Language: English *Depth: 1.50 *Width: 6.00 *Height: 8.75

From the Publisher:
This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of life aboard a man-of-war are faultlessly 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.

Annotation:
MASTER AND COMMANDER is the first volume in the O'Brian's delightful series about the English Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, in which Jack Aubrey (a captain in the Royal Navy) and Stephen Maturin (who will become his ship's surgeon and closest friend) first meet, in April 1800 at a performance of Locatelli's C-major Quartet at a concert in Minorca. This first installment is a beautifully written and observed novel of war, friendship, love, and--not incidentally--natural history, amateur music-making, the British intelligence network, and 18th-century life in general.

Author Bio

Patrick O'Brian

Born in England as Richard Patrick Russ, the eighth of nine children, O'Brian changed his name and cut himself off from his family at the age of 29, for reasons unknown. He published a book at the age of 15, called CAESAR: THE LIFE STORY OF A PANDA LEOPARD. A doctor recommended sea air for his weak lungs, and he learned to sail--a lifelong interest that is a vital part of his Aubrey-Maturin novels. O'Brian married young, had a son and a daughter (who died in childhood), and was divorced before World War II. In 1945, he married Mary Wicksteed Tolstoy (who was married when he met her to Count Dmitri Tolstoy). O'Brian was unfit for active duty in World War II; instead, he drove an ambulance and worked for the British secret service. After the war, he and Mary moved to Wales under his new name, and he began to write, but eventually they moved to the more congenial climate of the small village of Collioure, in the south of France, where O'Brian lived in determined obscurity for the rest of his life. The first in the Aubrey-Maturin novels was published in 1969. In addition to his popular and critically acclaimed novels of the English navy during the Napoleonic Wars, O'Brian wrote biographies (of Picasso, among others) and translated many works from French. Like his character Stephen Maturin, he was a dedicated naturalist. He was also an amateur astronomer, knew several languages well (including Spanish and Catalan), and had a small vineyard behind his house.

Praise

New York Times Book Review
"Patrick O'Brian's sophisticated sea story...re-creates with delightful subtlety, the flavor of life aboard a midget British man-of-war....Even for a reader not especially interested in matters nautical, the author's easy command of the philosophical, political, sensual and social temper of the times flavors a rich entertainment." - Martin Levin 12/14/1969

Product Attributes

Book Format:		Hardcover
Number of Pages:		0416
Publisher:		W. W. Norton & Company
Series Part:		01

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Master and Commander (Hardcover)

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