The Letter of Marque : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian

The Letter of Marque

By: Patrick O'Brian

Paperback | 2 September 1997

At a Glance

Paperback


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Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the twelfth book in the series.

Jack Aubrey is a naval officer, a post-captain of experience and capacity. When The Letter of Marque opens he has been struck off the Navy List for a crime he has not committed. With Aubrey is his friend and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also an unofficial British intelligence agent.

Maturin has bought for Aubrey his old ship the Surprise, so that the misery of ejection from the service can be palliated by the command of what Aubrey calls a 'private man-of-war' -- a letter of marque, a privateer. Together they sail on a voyage which, if successful, might restore Aubrey to the rank, and the raison d'etre, whose loss he so much regrets. Around these simple, ostensibly familar elements Patrick O'Brian has written a novel of great narrative power, exploring his extraordinary world once more, in a tale full of human feeling and rarely matched in its drama.

About The Author

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.
Industry 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

The Aubrey-Maturin Series

Master and Commander : Aubrey/Maturin Book 1 - Patrick O'Brian
The Commodore : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian

RRP $22.99

$21.90

The Hundred Days : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian

RRP $22.99

$21.35

The Yellow Admiral : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
The Fortune Of War : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
Post Captain : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian

RRP $22.99

$21.90

Blue At the Mizzen : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
The Nutmeg Of Consolation : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
The Mauritius Command : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
HMS Surprise : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian

RRP $22.99

$22.90

The Wine-Dark Sea : Aubrey-Maturin Ser. - Patrick O'Brian
The Ionian Mission : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
The Surgeon's Mate : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
Treason's Harbour : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
The Letter of Marque : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
The Thirteen-Gun Salute : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
Desolation Island : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian
Clarissa Oakes : Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian