"Every [Aubrey-Maturin] book is packed to absolute straining with erudition, wit, history, and thunderous action." —Joe Hill
Stranded in Malta, Captain Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin must be careful, for the salons and dockyards are infested with Napoleon’s spies, and there is a traitor in the British intelligence network. This installment of Patrick O’Brian’s “20-volume masterpiece” (Christopher Hitchens) takes Aubrey and Maturin sailing on the pirate-plagued waters of the Red Sea, trudging over the Sinai Peninsula and even the depths of the sea floor in their efforts to stay one step ahead of the treachery afoot.
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Treason's Harbour (Aubrey-Maturin Series #9)
"Every [Aubrey-Maturin] book is packed to absolute straining with erudition, wit, history, and thunderous action." —Joe Hill
Stranded in Malta, Captain Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin must be careful, for the salons and dockyards are infested with Napoleon’s spies, and there is a traitor in the British intelligence network. This installment of Patrick O’Brian’s “20-volume masterpiece” (Christopher Hitchens) takes Aubrey and Maturin sailing on the pirate-plagued waters of the Red Sea, trudging over the Sinai Peninsula and even the depths of the sea floor in their efforts to stay one step ahead of the treachery afoot.
"Every [Aubrey-Maturin] book is packed to absolute straining with erudition, wit, history, and thunderous action." —Joe Hill
Stranded in Malta, Captain Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin must be careful, for the salons and dockyards are infested with Napoleon’s spies, and there is a traitor in the British intelligence network. This installment of Patrick O’Brian’s “20-volume masterpiece” (Christopher Hitchens) takes Aubrey and Maturin sailing on the pirate-plagued waters of the Red Sea, trudging over the Sinai Peninsula and even the depths of the sea floor in their efforts to stay one step ahead of the treachery afoot.
Patrick O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey/Maturin series of historical novels has been described as "a masterpiece" (David Mamet, New York Times), "addictively readable" (Patrick T. Reardon, Chicago Tribune), and "the best historical novels ever written" (Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review), which "should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century" (George Will).Set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, O'Brian's twenty-volume series centers on the enduring friendship between naval officer Jack Aubrey and physician (and spy) Stephen Maturin. The Far Side of the World, the tenth book in the series, was adapted into a 2003 film directed by Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. The film was nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture. The books are now available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book format.In addition to the Aubrey/Maturin novels, Patrick O'Brian wrote several books including the novels Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore, as well as biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He translated many works from French into English, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir, the first volume of Jean Lacouture's biography of Charles de Gaulle, and famed fugitive Henri Cherrière's memoir Papillon. O'Brian died in January 2000.
I fell in love with his writing straightaway, at first with Master and Commander. It wasn’t primarily the Nelson and Napoleonic period, more the human relationships. . . . And of course having characters isolated in the middle of the goddamn sea gives more scope. . . . It’s about friendship, camaraderie. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me.
A. S. Byatt
O'Brian's narrative...provides endlessly varying shocks and surprises—comic, grim, farcical and tragic. An essential of the truly gripping book for the narrative addict is the creation of a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit, and O'Brian does this with prodigal specificity and generosity.
George Will
O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin volumes actually constitute a single 6,443-page novel, one that should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century.
