(Caesar tells the picaresque, enchanting, and quite bloodt...)
Caesar tells the picaresque, enchanting, and quite bloodthirsty story of a creature whose father is a giant panda and whose mother is a snow leopard. Through the eyes and voice of this fabulous creature, we learn of his life as a cub, his first hunting exploits, his first encounters with man, his capture and taming.
(The story is about a young mahout - or elephant handler -...)
The story is about a young mahout - or elephant handler - his childhood and life in India, and his relationship and adventures with elephants. As a boy, Hussein falls in love with a beautiful and elusive girl, Sashiya, and arranges for another of her suitors to be murdered with a fakir's curse. The dead man's relatives vow vengeance.
(Joseph Pugh, sick of Oxford and of teaching, decides to t...)
Joseph Pugh, sick of Oxford and of teaching, decides to take some time off to live in a wild and beautiful Welsh farm valley that seems at the other end of the earth from the life he has known at the great university. There he falls physically ill, and is nursed back to health by Bronwen Vaughn, the wife of a neighboring farmer. Although Bronwen's husband Emyr is a successful farmer and a pillar of the community, there is a streak of sado-sexual violence in him that has ruined their marriage.
Slowly, unwillingly, Bronwen and Pugh fall in love; and while that word is never spoken between them, their story is as passionate and as tragic as that of Vronsky and Anna Karenina. People, and Emyr's family in particular, begin to take note of the friendship between Bronwen and Pugh. The visit of a famous preacher punctures the boil of jealousies and suspicions in the small community, and the violence that follows comes almost as a relief.
(This novel is a powerful successor to Testimonies, Patric...)
This novel is a powerful successor to Testimonies, Patrick O'Brian's first novel written for adults. It is set in that corner of France that became O'Brian's adopted home, where the long, dark wall of the Pyrenees runs headlong to meet the Mediterranean. Alain Roig returns to Saint-Féliu after years in the East and finds his family in crisis. His dour, middle-aged cousin Xavier, the mayor and most powerful citizen of the town, has fallen in love and plans to marry Madeleine, the young daughter of the local grocer. The Roig family property is threatened by this union, and Madeleine's relatives object on different grounds.
(In the year 1740, Commodore (later Admiral) George Anson ...)
In the year 1740, Commodore (later Admiral) George Anson embarked on a voyage that would become one of the most famous exploits in British naval history. Sailing through poorly charted waters, Anson and his men encountered disaster, disease, and astonishing success. They circumnavigated the globe and seized a nearly incalcuable sum of Spanish gold and silver, but only one of the five ships survived.
(Best-selling author Patrick O'Brian turns to Commodore An...)
Best-selling author Patrick O'Brian turns to Commodore Anson's famous 1740 voyage for this rich tale of exploration and adventure. In The Unknown Shore, the inspiration for and immediate precursor to the acclaimed and immensely popular Aubrey/Maturin series, O'Brian's splendid prose and enthralling attention to detail launches listeners, spellbound, into the Age of Discovery.
(Temple escapes from a blighted childhood and his widowed,...)
Temple escapes from a blighted childhood and his widowed, alcoholic mother thanks to an artistic gift, the one thing of value he has to his name. His life as a painter in London of the '30s is cruelly deprived. In order to eat, he squanders this one asset by becoming a forger of art, specializing in minor works by Utrillo. He is rescued by the love of a beautiful and wealthy woman, and it is the failure of this relationship and the outbreak of war that propel him into the world of espionage.
(Master and Commander is the first of Patrick O'Brian's no...)
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 debut 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'.
(The Peace of Amiens has left Jack Aubrey with no ship, no...)
The Peace of Amiens has left Jack Aubrey with no ship, no enemy to pursue, and no possibility of prize money to supplement his meager income. His decision to seek refuge from his troubles, and creditors, in France proves doubly disastrous.
(At the opening of his third novel in an ongoing adventure...)
At the opening of his third novel in an ongoing adventure series by Patrick O'Brian, Jack Aubrey is cruising off Cape Sicie when his friend Stephen Maturin (more serenely situated in Sussex) is informed of the Board's decision regarding Aubrey's prize money, taken after victorious engagement with a Spanish squadron at Cape Santa Maria. The money, five million pieces of eight, is not, as is the custom of war, to be divided among the crews of the four victorious vessels, but is to be treated as droits of the Crown of England. Five million pounds is, after all, five million pounds.
It will be a hard rub for Aubrey, who had counted on that money to clear his debts and make himself a suitable match, but no more hard than for Maturin who spends much of his free time at Mapes Court in the company of the lovely Sophia Williams, Aubrey's betrothed. How could Stephen deliver the news that would break Sophia's heart?
(Patrick O'Brian's outstanding biography of Picasso is her...)
Patrick O'Brian's outstanding biography of Picasso is here available in paperback for the first time. It is the most comprehensive yet written, and the only biography fully to appreciate the distinctly Mediterranean origins of Picasso's character and art.
(Lucky Jack Aubrey escapes the burdens of domesticity when...)
Lucky Jack Aubrey escapes the burdens of domesticity when he is appointed to the post of Admiral for an expedition to the coast of Madagascar where French frigates are threatening one of England's valued trade routes.
(Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Cap...)
Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy - and a dangerous disease which decimates the crew.
(Captain Jack Aubrey sets sail for the South China Sea wit...)
Captain Jack Aubrey sets sail for the South China Sea with a new lease on life. Following his dismissal from the Royal Navy, he has earned reinstatement through his daring exploits as a privateer. Now he is to shepherd Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, sometime intelligence agent, and now unofficial adviser to His Britannic Majesty's envoy - on a diplomatic mission to prevent links between Bonaparte and the Malay princes which would put English merchant shipping at risk. The journey encompasses a great and satisfying diversity of adventures. Maturin climbs the Thousand Steps of the sacred crater of the orangutans; a killer typhoon catches Aubrey and his crew trying to work their ship of a reef; and at the barbaric court of Pulo Prabang a classic duel of intelligence agents unfold: the French envoys, well entrenched in the Sultan's good graces, against the savage cunning of Maturin. The heart of The Thirteen Gun Salute is the story of a friendship, and it is here that we have the most perfect window on the soul of that age. Maturin's unsparing, melancholy intelligence mirrors the scientific rationalism of the Enlightenment; Aubrey, bluff, competent, and endlessly courageous, embodies the fierce the fierce energy of the dawning century. Again and again the listener is refreshed by their enthusiasms and wit, their music, quarrels, and laughter. This is the sixth in O'Brian's 20-volume Aubrey/Maturin series.
(Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by despa...)
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by despatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attentions of two privateers soon become menacing. The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is as thrilling, as tense, and as unexpected in its culmination as anything Patrick O'Brian has written. Then, among other things, follows a shipwreck and a particularly sinister internment in the notorious Temple Prison in Paris. Once again, the tigerish and fascinating Diana Villiers redresses the balance in this man's world of seamanship and war.
(Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles...)
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles, return in this novel to the seas where they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior captain, commanding a line-of-battle ship sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder, colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days... A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship - and luck when fighting against odds - come triumphantly into their own as the story concludes with some fierce and thrilling action.
(While Captain Aubrey worries about repairs to his ship, S...)
While Captain Aubrey worries about repairs to his ship, Stephen Maturin assumes the centre stage; for the dockyards and salons of Malta are alive with Napoleon's agents, and the admiralty's intelligence network is compromised. Maturin's cunning is the sole bulwark against sabotage of Aubrey's daring mission. All of Patrick O'Brian's strengths are on parade in this novel of action and intrigue, set partly in Malta, partly in the treacherous, pirate-infested waters of the Red Sea.
(It is still the War of 1812 and Jack Aubrey - with his te...)
It is still the War of 1812 and Jack Aubrey - with his tetchy, sardonic friend Stephen Maturin - has set course across the South Atlantic to intercept a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. If they do not come up with her before she rounds the Horn, they must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific as she may lead them. But Aubrey has to cope with a succession of disasters - men overboard, castaways, encounters with savages, storms, typhoons, groundings, shipwrecks, to say nothing of murder and criminal insanity.
(Captain Jack Aubrey, Royal Navy, ashore after a successfu...)
Captain Jack Aubrey, Royal Navy, ashore after a successful cruise, is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make certain investments in the city. This innocent decision ensnares him in the London criminal underground and in government espionage - the province of his friend Stephen Maturin. Is Aubrey's humiliation and the threatened ruin of his career a deliberate plot? The dark tale is a fitting backdrop to the brilliant characterization and sparkling dialogue which O'Brian's listeners have come to expect. This is the eleventh in O'Brian's 20-volume Aubrey/Maturin series.
(One of our greatest writers about the sea has written an ...)
One of our greatest writers about the sea has written an engrossing story of one of history's most legendary maritime explorers. Patrick O'Brian's biography of naturalist, explorer and co-founder of Australia, Joseph Banks, is narrative history at its finest. Published to rave reviews, it reveals Banks to be a man of enduring importance, and establishes itself as a classic of exploration.
(Captain Jack Aubrey, a brilliant and experienced officer,...)
Captain Jack Aubrey, a brilliant and experienced officer, has been struck off the list of post-captains for a crime he did not commit. His old friend Stephen Maturin, usually cast as a ship's surgeon to mask his discreet activities on behalf of British Intelligence, has bought for Aubrey his former ship the Surprise to command as a privateer, more politely termed a letter of marque. Together they sail on a desperate mission against the French, which, if successful, may redeem Aubrey from the private hell of his disgrace.
(Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin set sail aboard t...)
Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin set sail aboard the Diane for the South China Sea, shepherding a diplomatic mission to prevent links between Bonaparte and the Malay princes. If their mission fails, English merchant shipping in the area will be threatened. At the barbaric court of Pulo Prabang, the stage is set for a duel of intelligence agents, pitting the savage cunning of Stephen Maturin against the French envoys, who are already entrenched in the Sultan's favor. The thirteenth installment of Patrick O'Brian's hugely successful Aubrey/Maturin series.
(Shipwrecked on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies, ...)
Shipwrecked on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies, Captain Aubrey, surgeon and secret intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, and the crew of the Diane fashion a schooner from the wreck. A vicious attack by Malay pirates is repulsed, but the makeshift vessel burns, and they are truly marooned. Their escape from this predicament is one that only the whimsy and ingenuity of Patrick O'Brian - or Stephen Maturin - could devise. In command now of a new ship, the Nutmeg, Aubrey pursues his interrupted mission. The dreadful penal colony in New South Wales, harrowingly described, is the backdrop to a diplomatic crisis provoked by Maturin's Irish temper, and to a near-fatal encounter with the wildlife of the Australian outback.
(Clarissa Oakes is titled The Truelove in the United State...)
Clarissa Oakes is titled The Truelove in the United States. Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime's experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking. They know, as he does not, that the Surprise has a stranger aboard: and what they, for their part, do not know is that the stranger is potentially as dangerous as a light in the powder magazine itself.
(The sixteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and Pa...)
The sixteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and Patrick O'Brian's first bestseller in the United States. At the outset of this adventure filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin pursue an American privateer through the Great South Sea. The strange color of the ocean reminds Stephen of Homer's famous description, and portends an underwater volcanic eruption that will create a new island overnight and leave an indelible impression on the reader's imagination. Their ship, the Surprise, is now also a privateer, the better to escape diplomatic complications from Stephen's mission, which is to ignite the revolutionary tinder of South America. Jack will survive a desperate open boat journey and come face to face with his illegitimate black son; Stephen, caught up in the aftermath of his failed coup, will flee for his life into the high, frozen wastes of the Andes; and Patrick O'Brian's brilliantly detailed narrative will reunite them at last in a breathtaking chase through stormy seas and icebergs south of Cape Horn, where the hunters suddenly become the hunted.
(The seventeenth novel in the best-selling Aubrey/Maturin ...)
The seventeenth novel in the best-selling Aubrey/Maturin series of naval tales, which the New York Times Book Review has described as "the best historical novels ever written." Having survived a long and desperate adventure in the Great South Sea, Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin return to England to very different circumstances. For Jack it is a happy homecoming, at least initially, but for Stephen it is disastrous: his little daughter appears to be autistic, incapable of speech or contact, while his wife, Diana, unable to bear this situation, has disappeared, her house being looked after by the widowed Clarissa Oakes. Much of The Commodore takes place on land, in sitting rooms and in drafty castles, but the roar of the great guns is never far from our hearing. Aubrey and Maturin are sent on a bizarre decoy mission to the fever-ridden lagoons of the Gulf of Guinea to suppress the slave trade. But their ultimate destination is Ireland, where the French are mounting an invasion that will test Aubrey's seamanship and Maturin's resourcefulness as a secret intelligence agent. The subtle interweaving of these disparate themes is an achievement of pure storytelling by one of our greatest living novelists.
(Patrick O'Brian has emerged, in the opinion of many, as o...)
Patrick O'Brian has emerged, in the opinion of many, as one of the greatest novelists in English. His fame rests mainly on the achievement of the epic Aubrey/Maturin novels, but few readers know that O'Brian first made his reputation as a writer of short fiction. Collected here are twenty-seven stories that O'Brian wished to preserve: stories of uncommon lyricism and beauty that will confirm his rightful place in the front rank of short-story writers as well as of novelists.
(Aubrey, now a considerable though impoverished landowner,...)
Aubrey, now a considerable though impoverished landowner, has dimmed his prospects at the Admiralty by his erratic voting as a Member of Parliament; he is feuding with his neighbor, a man with strong Navy connections who wants to enclose the common land between their estates; he is on even worse terms with his wife, Sophie, whose mother has ferreted out a most damaging trove of old personal letters. Even Jack's exploits at sea turn sour: in the storm waters off Brest he captures a French privateer laden with gold and ivory, but this at the expense of missing a signal and deserting his post. Worst of all, in the spring of 1814, peace breaks out, and this feeds into Jack's private fears for his career.
(For years, critics have celebrated best-selling author Pa...)
For years, critics have celebrated best-selling author Patrick O'Brian's seafaring adventures for their magnificent blend of swashbuckling excitement and historical accuracy. With The Hundred Days, he transports you to the high seas of the Napoleonic era when the French demagogue is making a desperate attempt to control the European world. While Napoleon pursues the British across Europe, rumors fly about him forging a secret link with the forces of Islam. Soon an ominous horde of Muslim mercenaries gather. In a desperate attempt to avert disaster, ship's doctor Stephen Maturin navigates oriental politics to uncover the truth. And blustery Commodore Jack Aubrey launches a daring mission to destroy the growing French-Muslim menace.
(Napoleon has been defeated at Waterloo, and the ensuing p...)
Napoleon has been defeated at Waterloo, and the ensuing peace brings with it both the desertion of nearly half of Captain Aubrey's crew and the sudden dimming of Aubrey's career prospects in a peacetime navy. When the Surprise is nearly sunk on her way to South America - where Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are to help Chile assert her independence from Spain - the delay occasioned by repairs reaps a harvest of strange consequences. The South American expedition is a desperate affair; and in the end Jack's bold initiative to strike at the vastly superior Spanish fleet precipitates a spectacular naval action that will determine both Chile's fate and his own.
(To the delight of millions of Patrick O'Brian fans, here ...)
To the delight of millions of Patrick O'Brian fans, here is the final, partial installment of the Aubrey/Maturin series, for the first time in paperback. Blue at the Mizzen (novel #20) ended with Jack Aubrey getting the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. The next novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of the author's death, would have been the chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. The three chapters left on O'Brian's desk are presented here both in printed version-including his corrections to the typescript-and a facsimile of his manuscript, which goes several pages beyond the end of the typescript to include a duel between Stephen Maturin and an impertinent officer who is courting his fiancée. Of course we would rather have had the whole story; instead we have this proof that O'Brian's powers of observation, his humor, and his understanding of his characters were undiminished to the end. Includes a Facsimile of the Manuscript.
Patrick O'Brian was a British author and translator. He was well-known for his series of novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
Background
Ethnicity:
Patrick O'Brian's father was of German descent, while his mother was of Irish heritage.
Patrick O'Brian was born on December 12, 1914, in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom. He was a son of Charles Russ, a physician and Jessie Russ. He had eight siblings. O'Brian lost his mother at the age of four. His stepmother was Zoe Center. He changed his name by deed poll to Patrick O'Brian in August 1945.
Education
There is no record of Patrick O'Brian's attending any university.
Career
Patrick O'Brian's literary career began in his childhood with the publication of his earliest works, including several short stories, the book "Hussein, An Entertainment", and the short story collection Beasts Royal. He published his first novel at age 15, Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda Leopard, with help from his father.
In 1934 he applied successively to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force for officer training, but failed at both (rejected on health grounds for the first and on pilot-aptitude in initial training for the second). In 1935, he was living in London. During the Second World War, he worked as an ambulance driver. O'Brian and his second wife both joined the Political Intelligence Department (PID), a military organization that played an important role in disinformation operations. Though PID was for a time merged with Section D of MI6 in the new Special Operations Executive, O'Brian never saw service in the field.
In 1945 Patrick and his wife went to live in Wales, and he set to work under his new name. They found Wales miserable, cold and rainy, so in 1949 they moved to Collioure, on the Mediterranean near Perpignan. They returned to Britain for visits. In 1952 O'Brian had his novel Testimonies accepted. It was set in Wales, and did not sell very strongly. Another novel, The Catalans, was described as "remarkable and beautiful" by Stevie Smith when she reviewed it in 1953.
O'Brian published another novel in 1954 and a book of short stories before his first sea-faring book, The Golden Ocean, appeared in 1956. But in the late 1950s and 1960s, he made most of income from translations, notably the works of Simone de Beauvoir, Andre Maurois and Henri Charriere's Papillon. It was in 1968 that an American publisher persuaded him to write another sea novel. Master and Commander, the first of the Aubrey-Maturin series, did not seem to the commissioning publisher a book that would sell.
His later works, including The Wine-Dark Sea, The Commodore, and his 1996 Yellow Admiral, earned him an avid following in the United States. Blue at the Mizzen (1999) made the New York Times best-seller list.
Patrick O'Brian had an interest in nature and birdwatching. He was fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Irish, and Latin languages.
Interests
nature, birdwatching
Connections
In 1936 Patrick O'Brian married his first wife, Elizabeth Jones. They had two children. Jane Russ, the second child, died in 1942. Later, they divorced. In 1945 he married Mary, the separated wife of Russian-born nobleman and lawyer Count Dimitri Tolstoy. Nikolai Tolstoy was his stepson.