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Aubrey–Maturin series

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The Aubrey–Maturin series, also known as the Aubreyad,<ref>The Gunroom of HMSSurprise.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-08. - quotation: "the work of Patrick O'Brian, the twenty novels of the 'Aubreyad' chronicling the voyages of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin"</ref> is a sequence of 20 completed and 1 unfinished historical novels by Patrick O'Brian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centering on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also a physician, natural philosopher, and secret agent. The 21st novel of the series, left unfinished by O'Brian's death in 2000, was published in late 2004.

Contents

The 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is based on books in this series, notably Master and Commander, HMS Surprise, The Letter of Marque and particularly The Far Side of the World. The role of Jack Aubrey was played by Russell Crowe, and Stephen Maturin was played by Paul Bettany.

[edit] The series in order

This is a list of the works in the series. This list is in both publication order and internal chronological order. Unlike some other fictional series, the books were published in the same order as the events they describe take place.

  1. Master and Commander (1970)
  2. Post Captain (1972)
  3. HMS Surprise (1973)
  4. The Mauritius Command (1977)
  5. Desolation Island (1978)
  6. The Fortune of War (1979)
  7. The Surgeon's Mate (1980)
  8. The Ionian Mission (1981)
  9. Treason's Harbour (1983)
  10. The Far Side of the World (1984)
  11. The Reverse of the Medal (1986)
  12. The Letter of Marque (1988)
  13. The Thirteen-Gun Salute (1989)
  14. The Nutmeg of Consolation (1991)
  15. Clarissa Oakes (1993)
    (The Truelove in the USA)
  16. The Wine-Dark Sea (1993)
  17. The Commodore (1995)
  18. The Yellow Admiral (1996)
  19. The Hundred Days (1998)
  20. Blue at the Mizzen (1999)
  21. The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (2004)
    (21 in the USA)

[edit] Narrative style

The narrative voice of these novels is of the present in their time; that is the author-narrator speaks with the same idioms and vocabulary as the characters, in the years in which the novels are set. This is uncommon in the modern historical novel, in which the reader might expect a more modern narrative style or at least a bit less jargon of the period.

A second noteworthy stylistic feature is O'Brian's use of naval jargon, with little or no translation for the "lubberly" reader. The combination of the historical-voice narration and naval terms is daunting at first to some readers but most note that after a short while a "total immersion" effect is produced. However, the naval lexicon can baffle any reader, and many devotees of the "POB" canon (as O'Brian's work is known) find support in numerous companion books. A notable example of this type is A Sea Of Words by Dean King (other publications are listed in Bibliography). The style is best summed up during a tour given the non-Naval Maturin during his first sailing who asks if the sailor can describe the rigging and ship without using sea-terms: "No, for it is by those names alone that they are known, in nearly every case" (Master and Commander, pg. 111, 1990 Norton Paperback Edition).

An unusual feature of the Aubrey-Maturin novels is O'Brian's abrupt style of conclusion. Typically a final short sentence, usually dialogue, delivers the last plot turn or indicates that a resolution is at hand. O'Brian employs no denouement or epilogue whatsoever. Since the Aubrey-Maturin novels are a canon, readers know they will have to proceed to the next volume to uncover the details of the resolution for the one they have just finished; and some of the editions include extensive additional material (typically literary or personal comments about O'Brian) that make the ending even more abrupt by concealing how many pages remain.

[edit] Characters

See also Recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The series portrays the rise of Jack Aubrey from Lieutenant to Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Many of his exploits and reverses are based on the chequered career of Thomas Cochrane. However, his character and his politics are quite different from those of his model.

Aubrey's friend Stephen Maturin is an Irish-Catalan physician, naturalist and spy. In his role as a naturalist he is based on Sir Joseph Banks. A recurring theme is his long pursuit of the beautiful but unreliable Diana Villiers.

[edit] Humour

A lot of the humour in the series come from the two principal characters' malapropisms. Aubrey is a genius at sea and with practical matters but has large gaps in his understanding of everything else, and should never be allowed within twelve fathoms of a metaphor.

Maturin, by contrast, is extremely erudite and a linguist, but his occasional attempts to use naval slang, or explain the working of a ship to someone are always doomed, though his ignorance of naval maneuvers always serves as a useful device for some more experienced sailor to come up with a more correct technical description of the whole thing, suited "to the meanest understanding" - something that a reader who doesn't know starboard from larboard will come to appreciate over a period of time.

Thus we have Aubrey's attempting to use the occasional word of French and describing a patois as a putain and Maturin saying "if the Admiral proves inquisitive, I may toss him off with a round turn" (the correct phrase is to bring someone up with a round turn).

Furthermore, there is an extensive but subtle humorous contrast between Aubrey and Maturin. Aubrey, a masterful sailor and naval tactician, tends to be inept and unlucky in his affairs ashore; often needing to quickly take to sea to avoid his troubles on land. Maturin on the other hand, while showing extraordinary subtlety and tact while on land, is clumsy and ignorant when it comes to seafaring; contriving to fall out of various ships and boats and hopelessly at sea (literally and figuratively) when it comes to the art of sailing.

Another principal source of humour in the canon is O'Brian's bone-dry and cutting wit, present throughout all his novels. The delivery, whether in the form of narration or dialogue, is often so forthright that the reader (or listener) does not perceive it at first. At times, however, O'Brian will spend a considerable portion of a volume setting up comedic sequences, perhaps most notably Jack's "debauchery" (by inadvertently making it drunk) of Maturin's pet sloth.

O'Brian will often have one character comment on another character's level of humour as a prime indicator of that character's emotional state. However, Aubrey's character is much more complex - despite his almost oafish sense of humour and near complete ignorance of literature and natural philosophy (his usual reaction when Stephen points out an interesting bird or animal to him is Can it be ate?') he is an aficionado of opera, and is a talented amateur violinist.

Humour and jokes spoken or written by the characters are frequently used by O'Brian to illustrate or develop character. Aubrey's delight in small witticisms, such as inducing Maturin to choose between 'the lesser of two weevils', is a recurring element in the series, as is Maturin's concealed, acerbic wit - such as his statement that the shortest watches of duty on board the ship, the dogwatches, are so called because they are "Curtailed" - "Cur Tailed", cur being another word for mongrel.

[edit] Toilet and Sexual Humour

O'Brian is not above inserting some toilet humour into the narrative, as for example when Jack, severely constipated and in no shape for a long series of official dinners, gets a dose of Blue Pill and Black Draught purgative from Maturin. He decides for himself that the dose is too small for his huge frame, and gets himself a second dose from Maturin's colleague Martin, leading to his spending several hours in the toilet, something that tickles his steward Killick's delight - "Which he's taken a ninety year lease of the quarter gallery" and "he's in his cabin now, snoring as loud as he ever he..." Killick stops himself before the next word because the comparison is "not genteel."

Killick frequently expresses the hope that he might be able to serve out people he dislikes by shoving something up their anuses - in Desolation Island, he fumes at the dockyard workers who improperly caulked the ship, making it wet and leaky, by wishing that he could "caulk them, with a red hot caulking iron, right up their _____". In another book, a purser he dislikes is given a clyster by Maturin, and Killick says "How I wish I could have given it him, the b_____".

The use of dashes to express supposedly unprintable words is a device that O'Brian uses occasionally, and that 18th and 19th century authors frequently used, sometimes to excess. These dashes are replaced by the words they are obviously meant to represent in Patrick Tull's recorded versions of the entire canon, for audio publisher Recorded Books.

Another very common device he uses is that of using words that are now thought to be "dirty" but were quite acceptable in the early 19th century, or that are factually correct in a much different sense. In Master and Commander, O'Brian casually introduces his readers to the cunt splice. In The Ionian Mission, Babbington rescues several women from a pirate and gets scolded by Aubrey for "whoremongering". Babbington's immediate reply is "Oh no, Sir - they are Lesbians". Of course they are - they're from the Greek island of Lesbos, whose association with the poetess Sappho gave its name to sex between women. Another humorous term used with complete seriousness in The Ionian Mission is a device much discussed by the scientifically-minded gentlemen aboard ship: the piece of sugar-refining equipment known as the "double-bottomed defecator". Similarly, in Treason's Harbour Stephen is describing the mechanism of a diving-bell to a pretty Italian double-agent and at one point offers to amplify his explanation with a sketch of the part which lets water in and out: "Will I draw you my little cock?" In another reference to the diving-bell, Stephen offers to search for a lost object underwater with a triumphant exclamation of "After all, I am an urinator!" Urinator, of course, being a little-used word for "diver".


O'Brian takes the funny words theme a step further, introducing similarly "funny" names of real or imagined people into the narrative, mostly puns on buggery and other sexual themes.

In Master and Commander, Jack and his crew stop a Danish brig called the Clomer, whose captain rejoices in the name of Ole Bugge. Jack barely stops himself from filling in an obligatory r at the end of Captain Bugge's surname. In the same book, Jack mentions that his bankers are Hoares - while the midshipmen he is addressing can barely restrain their glee at how the name puns with "Whores".

More funnily named bankers occur further on in the canon where Stephen, seated at dinner with Jack and another (quite austere and religious) post captain with a known distaste for swearing, laments the poor service his bankers give him - and wishes he could find a better banker - another Fugger. As it happens, there was a famous family of 15th and 16th century bankers of that name, with various members of the family getting themselves nicknames like The Fugger of the Deer and The Rich Fugger to boot.

In The Ionian Mission, Jack is introduced to a post captain whose father was a Canon of Windsor. He immediately puns Canon with Cannon, joking that the man is a son of a gun. Not too surprisingly, this joke, with its implication of bastardy, doesn't quite amuse the captain it is made to.

In The Surgeon's Mate, Maturin's godfather, the Catalan colonel in charge of Grimholm island, has a party piece - a long poem about his grandfather's campaign with Lord Peterborough, where he keeps mispronouncing "borough" to "rhyme with mugger" .. Lord Peterbuggah.

Jack's shipmates are just as good as he is in the "punning on names" line - M. Dutourd, in The Wine Dark Sea is not too popular with the old man of war hands on the Surprise, and Killick immediately shortens his name to Turd. In Desolation Island, Barrett Bonden is hailed by the crew of an American brig, the Asa Foulkes and hails them back, with, as O'Brian puts it, a deliberate mispronunciation of the brig's name .. quite likely something on the lines of Arse Fucks.

[edit] Details of the individual books

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Master and Commander

Cover by Geoff Hunt for Master and Commander.
Cover by Geoff Hunt for Post Captain.
Main article: Master and Commander

Master and Commander begins on April 18, 1800, in Port Mahon, Minorca, at that time a base of the Royal Navy. Jack Aubrey is a Lieutenant languishing in port without a ship, Stephen Maturin is a penniless half-Irish, half-Catalan physician and natural philosopher. The two main characters are first set at odds by and then united by a love of music (Aubrey plays the violin, Maturin the cello).

The novel introduces these two characters and gives Jack his first command (and promotion to the rank of Commander) on a tiny and antiquated sloop-of-war, HMS Sophie. Stephen accepts a position as Sophie's surgeon, although as a physician he is overqualified for the job.

We are introduced to Master's Mates Thomas Pullings and William Mowett and midshipman William Babbington, who become long-term fixtures in the series, and James Dillon, Sophie's first lieutenant, whose secret background of Irish Republicanism intersects Stephen's own.

After a series of successful cruises that bring him a windfall in prize money, Aubrey loses the Sophie when he is trapped by a large and powerful squadron of the French navy. He is released in time for him to be a spectator in the Battle of Algeciras, Admiral Sir James Saumarez's victorious fleet action against a vastly superior combined French and Spanish fleet in the Gut of Gibraltar

[edit] Post Captain

The book begins in 1802 with the conclusion of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Peace of Amiens. Commander Jack Aubrey returns to England to take up the life of a country squire, where he meets the Williams family, and their cousin Diana Villiers. Aubrey courts Sophia Williams (the eldest daughter) but is also attracted to Diana, with whom he commences an affair.

Aubrey plans to marry Sophia Williams, but his fortune is embezzled by his prize-agent and he flees the country to avoid his creditors, living with Maturin in France and Spain. He is restored to active service by the outbreak of war in 1803, and following his endeavours as commander of the unusual HMS Polychrest he is promoted to Post Captain, and given temporary command of HMS Lively while Captain Hammond is on leave.

The book ends with a fictionalized account of the capture of a Spanish treasure fleet by four British frigates in 1804; see HMS Indefatigable for an account of the incident. Other fictionalized accounts of this same incident occur in other historical novels of the period, including Hornblower and the Hotspur by C. S. Forester, and the novels of Alexander Kent. In actual history, Captain Hammond was the captain of the Lively at the time of this incident.

[edit] Editions

[edit] HMS Surprise

Cover by Geoff Hunt for HMS Surprise

Aubrey is given command of the frigate HMS Surprise, and charged with carrying a British ambassador to the East Indies. Much of the novel deals with the ups and downs of Maturin's relationship with Diana Villiers. Jack's romance with Sophie Williams also progresses.

This book is also Aubrey's first stint in command of, and the readers' first encounter with, the Surprise herself, although she is apparently based on the real Royal Navy frigate HMS Surprise, she is described as a ship on which he had served as a youth. His initials were still found carved in its mast. The real HMS Surprise, however, had been captured from the French in 1796, so that O'Brian would seem to have added some fifteen years to her age, taking her capture (which he mentions) back to the previous phase of Anglo-French hostilities which formed part of the war of American independence (1776-1783).

The Surprise becomes his favorite ship, and appears in many other novels in the series.

On the return voyage the Surprise encounters a fleet of the East India Company, returning from China laden with goods. The fleet comes under attack from a French squadron but Aubrey organizes a spirited defence from the merchant ships and bluffs the French into retreating. This episode is based on the Battle of Pulo Aura on 15 February 1804, in which 16 merchant ships of the East India Company under the command of Commodore Nathaniel Dance, drove off a French squadron consisting of the Marengo (74 guns), Belle-Poule (40), Sémillante (36), Berceau (22) and Aventurier (16), commanded by Rear-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois. Another fictional account of this incident appears in Newton Forster; or, the Merchant Service by Captain Frederick Marryat.

[edit] Editions

  • W. W. Norton & Company; 1st American edition; Paperback (1991) (ISBN 0393307611)
  • W. W. Norton & Company; Hardcover Reprint edition (1994) (ISBN 0393037037)
  • Thorndike Press; Largeprint hardcover edition (2000) (ISBN 0786219343)
  • Harper Collins; reprint paperback edition (2002) (ISBN 0006499171)
  • Blackstone Audiobooks; Unabridged Audio CD edition (2004) (ISBN 078618597X)
  • Fontana; Paperback edition (1976) (ISBN 0006141811)
  • Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull

[edit] The Mauritius Command

Cover by Geoff Hunt for The Mauritius Command.
Cover by Geoff Hunt for Desolation Island.
Main article: The Mauritius Command

The novel sees Aubrey made Commodore in charge of a squadron of ships sent to take the islands of Mauritius and Réunion from the French, and so protect British shipping interests in the Indian Ocean.

The novel gives further scope to Maturin's role as both a secret agent (in which he uses propaganda effectively to support the campaign) and as a naturalist (in which he is seen collecting relics of the extinct birds the Dodo and the Solitaire).

The plot of the novel is very closely based upon a real campaign carried out by the Royal Navy in 1810 under Commodore Josias Rowley. O'Brian notes this in the preface. The island was formally captured on 3 December 1810 (See also History of Mauritius.)

[edit] Desolation Island

Captain Aubrey, at home in England, is haplessly squandering his newly acquired wealth when he is given the 50 gun fourth-rate HMS Leopard, a notoriously unlucky ship. Aubrey is ordered to Australia to deal with the Rum Rebellion against the administration of William Bligh. On board are a number of prisoners bound for the colonies, and Dr. Maturin is assigned to extract information from one, a beautiful American spy named Louisa Wogan. Maturin works to deceive Ms. Wogan with a scheme to compromise the American and French spy networks. En route to Australia, the Leopard is becalmed and devastated by a plague, engaged in a chilling life-or-death chase by the Dutch 74 gun Waakzaamheid, gravely wounded by an Antarctic iceberg, and stranded on Desolation Island, a frigid, uninhabited archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean. Although O'Brian's description physically and geographically resembles the Kerguelen Islands, Aubrey explicitly states that it is not Kerguelen in The Thirteen-Gun Salute.

The real-life Leopard's earlier involvement in the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair is mentioned, and the book deals with the tension between the English and Americans on the eve of the War of 1812. The near sinking of the Leopard after striking an iceberg is based on an actual event involving HMS Guardian in 1789. The novel contains an unflattering portrait of Lieutenant James Grant.

Desolation Island marks a turning point in the Aubrey/Maturin novels. Whereas the previous four novels are self contained (Master & Commander having been written as a stand-alone novel, and the following three titles merely being sequels whose story arcs were in no way integrated with any of the other novels in the saga), in Desolation Island, O'Brian begins an arc that will continue through the entirety of Fortune of War before concluding in The Surgeon's Mate. Some of the events set in motion in this arc will return to haunt Jack and Stephen as late as The Yellow Admiral, novel number 18.

[edit] Editions

[edit] The Fortune of War

Cover by Geoff Hunt for The Fortune of War.

Set during the War of 1812, this novel contains lightly fictionalized accounts of the battles between HMS Java and USS Constitution, and between HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake.

Aubrey is captured by the Americans, who are particularly suspicious of him as a former commander of HMS Leopard, due to the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair.

This book extensively explores Maturin's character while he and Aubrey are held captive in Boston, as he is able to manifest his various roles; doctor, spy, and tormented lover. It continues the account of Maturin's pursuit of Diana Villiers, with whom he is still deeply in love.

Critical readers have said that the degree of freedom the French agents have would have been most improbable in Federalist Boston, where the French were not well-liked by the local authorities; nor was Aubrey likely to be as loosely guarded as he is in the novel.

[edit] Editions

[edit] The Surgeon's Mate

Cover by Geoff Hunt for The Surgeon's Mate.

The story starts in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Aubrey and Maturin, having escaped from the Americans in Boston on HMS Shannon, start their return journey to England aboard a packet ship. The packet ship is doggedly pursued by two American privateer schooners across the Grand Banks.

Maturin is sent on a mission to the Baltic to persuade the Catalan garrison of the fortress at Grimsholm to defect. It seems likely that this episode is based on similar events in 1808. In 1807, the Spanish government, at that time allied with France, had sent 15,000 troops to Denmark to act as a garrison against a possible British landing there. These troops, among the best in Spain, were posted in small detachments on offshore islands and kept in the dark about political developments in Spain following Napoleon's invasion and occupation of Spain in 1807 (see Peninsular War). The Duke of Wellington dispatched the Scottish Benedictine monk James Robertson (on the advice of his brother Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley). Robertson had been brought up at the Benedictine abbey at Regensburg in Germany, and so was able to pass through occupied Germany under the guise of "Adam Rohrauer", a dealer in cigars and chocolate. Robertson made contact with the Spanish general, the Marquis de la Romana, on the island of Funen, where the two agreed that the Spanish troops would defect and be returned to Spain on British ships. Robertson escaped to Heligoland (then a British possession) to inform Admiral Richard Goodwin Keats of the agreement, and a fleet of transports escorted by HMS Superb embarked 9,000 Spanish soldiers.

The imprisonment of Aubrey and Maturin in the Temple prison in Paris may have been inspired by the case of Captain Sidney Smith, captured on 19th April 1796 while attempting to cut out a French ship in Le Havre. Instead of exchanging him as was the custom, Smith was taken to the Temple prison to be charged with arson for his burning of the fleet at Toulon in 1793. Smith was held in Paris for two years, despite a number of efforts to exchange him and frequent contacts with both French Royalists and British agents. In 1798, he was helped to escape by the Royalists who pretended to be taking him to another prison. Instead they brought him to Le Havre where he boarded a fishing boat and was picked up by a British frigate on patrol in the English Channel, arriving in London on 8th May 1798. Some historians have speculated that he allowed himelf to be captured so that he could make contact with the Royalists.

The title of the novel is a play on words, referring not just to Maturin's assistant but also to his long-time love interest and future wife, Diana Villiers.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1402591845)

[edit] The Ionian Mission

Aubrey is given the command of a 74-gun ship of the line and has to endure blockade duty off Toulon under the command of Lord Collingwood. However, he is reassigned to detached duty aboard his beloved Surprise and sails to the Adriatic to deal with French attempts to take over parts of the Ottoman empire.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1402591810)

[edit] Treason's Harbour

While HMS Surprise is being repaired in Malta, Aubrey and his crew are assigned to an untidy, complex mission on behalf of the British East India Company in the Red Sea. The plan has been betrayed by a British double agent in Malta and after much hardship and exertion the British achieve nothing - Maturin is even robbed of his carefully gathered collections.

Back in Malta Aubrey learns that Surprise is to be retired and that his hoped-for heavy frigate command has gone to another. He commands the Surprise as a convoy escort to the Adriatic, on the return leg he captures a fine French privateer, and then on a political mission to Zambra with Admiral Harte and the aged HMS Pollux before continuing to Gibraltar and home. The two ships are surprised at Zambra by an eighty-gun man-of-war and two frigates, evidence of further failures in British intelligence.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1402591853)

[edit] The Far Side of the World

Cover by Geoff Hunt for The Far Side of the World.

The Far Side of the World is set during the War of 1812. In this novel Captain Jack Aubrey takes the frigate HMS Surprise around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean in pursuit of the American frigate USS Norfolk and in defense of British whalers in the South Seas. Parts of the exploits of the Norfolk are based on the historical expedition of the USS Essex, although the ending is changed.

[edit] Film

The novel provided much of the overall plot structure for the 2003 Peter Weir film, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, though the fictional USS Norfolk was changed to the fictional American-built French privateer Acheron, and episodes were also taken from other books in the series, including Master and Commander and HMS Surprise. The design and size of the fictional Acheron were based upon those of the USS Constitution.

[edit] Editions

  • Collins (1984)
  • W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint Paperback edition (1992) (ISBN 0393308626)
  • Books on Tape; Audio edition (1993) (ISBN 5555768079)
  • W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint Hardcover edition (1994) (ISBN 039303710X)
  • Thorndike Press; Large-print Hardcover edition (2002) (ISBN 0754017834)
  • Thorndike Press; Large-print Paperback edition (2002) (ISBN 0754091759)
  • W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue (movie tie-in) Paperback edition (2003) (ISBN 0393324761)
  • Soundings Ltd; Audio CD Edition (2003) (ISBN 1842832689)
  • Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1402591764)

[edit] The Reverse of the Medal

Cover by Geoff Hunt for The Reverse of the Medal.

Newly returned to England, Aubrey hears a rumor from a stranger he meets in an inn that a peace with France will soon be signed. The stranger, who seems to be a diplomatic agent named Palmer, indicates to Aubrey how he can make money on the stock exchange by buying stocks sure to go up as soon as the news becomes public. Aubrey makes the transactions as he has been advised, and also gives the advice to his father, the widely-disliked Radical General Aubrey, who makes much larger stock transactions and spreads the rumor much farther. The rumor of a peace treaty gets out, and the stock transactions are highly profitable - more so to the General and his stock-jobbing friends than to Aubrey.

Then it is revealed that the rumor is a false one, and that Palmer was no part of the government (it is later revealed that he was directed by the two highest placed English agents in the service of the French). Aubrey is arrested, imprisoned at Marshalsea, and undegoes a Guildhall trial for fraud.

Maturin tries to help his friend. He uses his colleagues in the government and hires an investigator, but is unable to secure enough proof to win an acquittal - Palmer, the key figure, having been murdered and mutilated. Aubrey, despite a touching belief in British justice, is convicted after a two day trial, fined £2,500 and sentenced to one hour in the pillory. He is also dismissed from the Royal Navy (struck off the list) - a shattering blow to him.

Maturin has inherited a vast sum from his Spanish godfather. He utilises a small part of his money to buying the old HMS Surprise at auction and obtaining letters of marque and reprisal. In part he does this because he is still deep in the intelligence game and could not, would not, sail with any one other than Jack.

The story and many of the details of the trial are based on the trial of Lord Cochrane.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 140257827X)

[edit] The Letter of Marque

Maturin purchases the Surprise and Aubrey is granted a letter of marque. Aubrey prepares the Surprise to sail as a privateer, finding many things quite different than in the Navy. He is bitter and low-spirited about his dismissal for much of the book. However, he is strongly supported by his crew - notably a group of smugglers and religious fanatics recruited at the little port of Shelmerston (fictional) in south-west England - and his success in a cutting-out raid on the French port of St. Martin makes him a popular hero.

(Note: the "letter of marque" of the title probably refers to the Surprise herself, rather than the document.)

[edit] Editions

[edit] The Thirteen-Gun Salute

Immediately following The Letter of Marque, the story picks up with Aubrey getting the Surprise underway for the mission to South America. Upon reaching Portugal, however, they are intercepted by Sir Joseph Blaine and Aubrey learns that he is to be reinstated with his former seniority as a Post Captain in the Royal Navy, and given the recently captured French ship Diane, the Surprise to be commanded by Captain Pullings.

His new assignment leads us into the story of a venture to the fictitious Malay island of Pulo Prabang, where Fox, an ambitious King's emissary, attempts to win over the local king with a treaty, while the French attempt the same. The French, in this case, are now being openly assisted by the same English traitors who were responsible for Aubrey's disgrace.

Stephen's work keeps him undercover as a naturalist as he engages in a political duel for influence at the Sultan's court. Although his works are to go unknown, they prove to be invaluable in both undermining the French efforts and finally exacting his revenge on his enemies, the French agents, Ledward and Wray.

Ledward and Wray are caught in bed with Abdul, a boy who is the Sultan's cupbearer and catamite, the Sultan having pederast tendencies, though married and fathering a son by his queen. Abdul is gruesomely executed, while Wray and Ledward are banished from the court, effectively ending the French mission. Ledward and Wray are later shot: O'Brian leaves it until well into the following novel to confirm Maturin as the assassin. Maturin dissects their bodies with a fellow natural philosopher and intelligence agent and then reduces them to skeletons by laying their remains on an anthill.

Returning, Aubrey and the crew of the Diane are shipwrecked on a desert island. Fox and his colleagues decide to sail for Batavia in Dianes pinnace, but are caught in a typhoon and killed. Aubrey's crew decides to stay on the island and build a small schooner from the ship's remains.

The title refers to the honor that Fox believes is due him at the end of the negotiations for his success in obtaining the treaty.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 0788767178)

"Related Article" By Lois Montbertrand, concerns O'Brian's use of A. E. Housman's poem "Bells in the Tower" in this novel; appeared in Housman Society Journal 2002, see [1]

[edit] The Nutmeg of Consolation

Cover by Geoff Hunt for The Nutmeg of Consolation

The book opens with Aubrey and his crew shipwrecked on a remote island in the South China Sea after surviving the destruction of HMS Diane in a typhoon. While stranded on the island they fight a ferocious battle against Dayak pirates and are eventually rescued by Chinese traders.

Upon arriving in Batavia, Aubrey is provided by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles with a 20-gun ship which Aubrey renames Nutmeg of Consolation in reference to one of the titles of the Sultan of Kampong. Back at sea, Aubrey and the out-gunned Nutmeg engage in battle with a French frigate; at the height of the battle Nutmeg is joined by Surprise (no longer in commission at this point, but sold out of the service as a letter of marque and sailing as a Hired Vessel of the Royal Navy) under the temporary command of Aubrey's old friend and former lieutenant, Commander Thomas Pullings.

Resuming command of Surprise, Aubrey and Maturin continue their interrupted journey to New South Wales. On their way to Australia, Maturin rescues two young girls who are the sole survivors of an outbreak of smallpox that has killed the entire population of their small Pacific island.

Once in New South Wales the book contains graphic descriptions of the hell-on-earth that was the life in the penal colony under Governor Lachlan Macquarie shortly after the "Rum Rebellion" of the New South Wales Corps and its coup against Governor William Bligh. There are also detailed descriptions of the landscapes and fauna in and around Sydney harbour; Stephen Maturin has an interesting encounter with a male platypus in the final pages of the book.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull

[edit] Clarissa Oakes (titled The Truelove in the US)

A young female convict, Clarissa Harvill, is smuggled aboard HMS Surprise in Sydney by midshipman Oakes, to whom she is subsequently married by Aubrey. Her presence and activities cause much dissension aboard and upset the smooth running of the ship. Despite this Aubrey successfully adds a Polynesian island to the British crown and chases away an American privateer.

Mrs. Oakes proves to have knowledge which is helpful to Stephen Maturin in his role as a counter-intelligence agent.

Clarissa Oakes was published in the U.S. as The Truelove, which is the name of a ship in the novel, but may also refer to the woman.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1419302728)

[edit] The Wine-Dark Sea

Cover by Geoff Hunt for The Wine-Dark Sea

The book opens with the pursuit of an American privateer (the Franklin) in the south Pacific, and a volcanic eruption which damages the Surprise and disables the Franklin. The Franklin is taken, and Dutourd, a Frenchman, is found to be the owner. He plans to conquer a south Pacific island and establish a paradise of equality, justice, and little labor, after first enriching himself by committing piracy on assorted whalers and merchantmen, and then wiping out the island's hostile native population.

Maturin recognizes Dutourd from earlier days in the high society salons of Paris, and takes pains to hide his identity from the Frenchman. Aubrey, meanwhile, finds that not only does Dutourd not know the basic courtesies of life at sea, but does not have a letter of marque permitting him to operate the Franklin as a privateer. The Franklin had taken several British ships as prizes and Doutard's legal status is that of a pirate, liable to be hanged.

An American whaler is taken by the Surprise and the Franklin, and a British sailor on the whaler tells Aubrey of a French ship — the Alastor — turned a true pirate, unlike the Franklin, flying the black flag and demanding immediate surrender or death of its victims. The Franklin encounters the Alastor first, is outmatched, but the Surprise overcomes the pirates, with Aubrey receiving yet another wound in action.

The story now turns to Maturin's secret mission to Peru. He is put ashore and makes valuable contact among local military and government officials sympathetic to Peruvian independence, aided by Aubrey's illegitimate son Sam Panda, a prominent official in the Catholic Church.

Dutourd proves to be problematic, both for Maturin and for Aubrey. Maturin needs to maintain his identity as a simple ship's surgeon and naturalist, keeping his secrecy as a secret agent for the British, particularly since the current voyage of the Surprise is intended to deliver Maturin to Peru where he is to incite a revolution against the Spanish colonial government. Maturin's plans go sour. Dutourd escapes from the Surprise, aided by sympathetic crewmen; Reaching Peru, he raises a hue and cry, denouncing Maturin, on the eve of a carefully engineered revolution, as an English spy. The revolution fails due to this premature exposure and Maturin has to flee for his life.

Aubrey, meanwhile, sails in a small boat with few crewmen to San Lorenzo in an attempt to warn Maturin of Dutourd's escape; after many days of hard sailing in daunting weather conditions against the wind, they are rescued by the Surprise, at which point Maturin has already fled, trekking over the Andes mountains, braving avalanches and amputating two of his own frostbitten toes with a chisel - but being the indefatigable naturalist that he is, bringing back with him a huge number of plant and animal specimens.

Dutourd succeeds in denouncing Maturin and Aubrey, but his pseudo-progressive views bring him to the attention of the Spanish Inquisition, that was still active in Spanish colonies such as Peru, though suppressed by Napoleon during the time France occupied Spain. Dutourd is brought to Inquisition as a heretic and though no more is heard about him, it is quite safe to assume that he was tortured and subsequently executed for his supposed heresy.

Aubrey eventually picks Maturin up in Chile and takes the Surprise through a difficult passage around Cape Horn, dodging a superior squadron of American ships. The Surprise is dismasted after being struck by lightning, and the arrival of Berenice, a man of war commanded by Aubrey's old friend Heneage Dundas saves the situation, bringing them to safety and providing the pepper that Maturin needs to preserve his specimens from being damaged by pests.

The title comes from the English version of a line by Homer.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 141930903X)

[edit] The Commodore

This book sees the return of Aubrey and Maturin to England, where the latter finds that his young daughter Brigid appears to be an "idiot" or "natural" (to use the language of the time) and unable to speak, and that his wife Diana has fled the situation, leaving Brigid in the care of the now-widowed Clarissa Oakes. The title refers to Aubrey's appointment to command a squadron of ships, the second time he has been given such a command.

In The Mauritius Command, Aubrey was a commodore of the second class; this time, he is a commodore of the first class, entitled to the uniform and courtesies due to a Rear Admiral, though still ranking and paid as a post captain. He is also entitled to a captain under him - and so Tom Pullings finally gets made post, and serves as Aubrey's flag captain.

Once the squadron is formed, Aubrey and Maturin are very publicly charged with disrupting the African slave trade, now illegal, but the true mission of the squadron is to intercept a French invasion force which expects a sympathetic welcome in Maturin's native Ireland.

The squadron begins on a disastrous note, with powerful ships being taken away from it and replaced with less powerful ships, one commanded by a homosexual who destroys discipline by taking lovers among his crew, and another by a tyrant who, unlike Aubrey, values spit and polish more than efficiency in battle, and indiscriminately flogs his crewmen. These two captains and their crews soon find themselves at odds, threatening the squadron's efficiency.

Stephen survives a near fatal bout of Yellow Fever contracted while traipsing around the swamplands of West Africa in his usual search for rare birds and animals, a quest in which he is ably assisted by the British colonial governor's wife Christine Wood (née Hatherleigh), herself a naturalist and sister of one of Stephen's fellow members of the Royal Society - and a future love interest for Stephen.

Maturin's final remaining nemesis, the Duke of Habachtsthal, a vengeful minor royal and the lover of Ledward and Wray, who has been holding up chances of Aubrey's promotion and trying to get Maturin arrested for treason, commits suicide. This is possibly due to the threat of trial for treason after being identified by Clarissa Oakes and following extensive investigation carried out by Parker, a Bow Street Runner employed by Maturin and Sir Joseph Blaine - this would be a traditional courtesy to noblemen, allowing them to commit suicide and save themselves the ignominy of a public trial and even more public execution.

The attempted French invasion is foiled. Stephen reunites - yet again - with Diana, who happens to be living near the Irish coast where Aubrey and his squadron fight off the invasion.

Audio edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1419320882)

[edit] The Yellow Admiral

The title concerns Aubrey's fear of being made a "yellow admiral", a rear-admiral who is assigned to no squadron, and who is effectively retired on promotion. But the book ends before Aubrey knows whether he will avoid this fate.

Several minor crises, including a superior officer whose brother loses to Aubrey in an acrimonious dispute - and who detests Aubrey as a result, keep cropping up to ensure that Aubrey's career hangs in the balance.

In the Royal Navy of this period, admirals on active duty were assigned either the Blue, Red, or White squadrons (in order of seniority). The Blue Ensign, Red Ensign, or White Ensign indicated an admiral's rank and squadron assignment, and they were formally referred to as "Rear Admiral of the Red" or "Vice Admiral of the White". These three "squadrons" existed for administrative purposes, and should not be confused with physical squadrons, that is a group of ships commanded as a unit, but smaller than a fleet.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1419341170)

[edit] The Hundred Days

The title refers to the Hundred Days, a period when Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba and temporarily returned to power in France.

Like the title, it is also an interlude in Aubrey's career where O'Brian decides to clean up and consolidate the huge canvas of characters he introduced in his earlier books, and uses deus ex machina to dispose of some characters who he either tired of or found inconvenient to maintain in his storyline.

Aubrey's coxswain, Bonden, dies in the obligatory single ship action of this book, where the Surprise is matched against a galley stuffed with Arab treasure that is meant to fund Napoleon and revive his flagging campaign. All this vast treasure now belongs to Aubrey and his shipmates, deemed as a prize of war.

Stephen's wife Diana dies, as does Aubrey's mother in law Mrs. Williams and her equally unpleasant companion, in a crash when Diana's rash driving overturns their coach. So does Christine Hatherleigh's husband, the colonial governor of Sierra Leone.

Diana's death leaves Stephen completely shattered, unwilling to eat or speak for long periods of time, but he pulls himself together to foil Napoleon's latest plot, an effort to raise gold from a sect of Arabs and finance his campaign, as well as hire the Assassins to dispose of his enemy's generals.

Going on, we find that the superior officer whose baleful influence threatened to leave Jack Aubrey a mere Yellow Admiral dies too, of heart failure combined with self medication with digitalis - a drug that Stephen prescribed him in minute quantities. Popular rumour at once imputes the man's death to Stephen having poisoned him, but the dead man's unpopularity and unpleasant character combined to produce a general feeling, especially among people who had suffered under his command, that they should buy Stephen a drink for a job well done, instead of reporting him to the authorities.

The end of the book coincides with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, and the effective end of the Napoleonic wars. Aubrey and Maturin set sail for Chile in the Surprise, to try and undermine the Spanish colonial rule there - a continuation of the theme of The Wine Dark Sea.

Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1402591802)

[edit] Blue at the Mizzen

This novel was the last completed work in the series.

A blue ensign at the mizzen-mast was the flag of the Rear Admiral of the Blue, the lowest flag rank in the Royal Navy of the early 19th century.

Aubrey and Maturin are again sent around Cape Horn on a secret mission to help the Chileans gain independence from Spain, an effort loosely based on Lord Cochrane's setting up and commanding the Chilean Navy. Other historical figures from Chile's independence movement, including Don Bernardo O'Higgins and Gen. José de San Martín figure in the book as well.

Aubrey, initially against his wishes, is forced by The Duke of Clarence to accept his illegitimate son (whom the Duke refers to as a former shipmate's son, for propriety's sake) as a midshipman, and to his surprise and delight, finds the boy to be a competent sailor as well as having the mathematical skills that are essential for a navigator.

At a stop on the way to Chile, Stephen continues his budding romance with Christine Hatherleigh, who shares his tastes in natural philosophy and is altogether more level headed than his late wife Diana, and who attracts him physically as well, so that he has erotic dreams about her. She, on the other hand, has suffered from marriage with her impotent first husband, and is as yet unwilling to marry him, though she consents to visit the Aubreys and see Stephen's daughter Brigid at their home in Dorsetshire.

The book is packed with action - single ship actions against much heavier Spanish frigates, the siege of a fortified harbour, the capture of a pirate. Aubrey's efforts however remain under appreciated by the Chilean revolutionaries, who get bogged down in infighting and politics, and are moreover slow and stingy with payment.

At the very end, we get news of Aubrey's promotion to Rear Admiral of the Blue, attached to the South African squadron of the Royal Navy, which serves as an excellent closure for the book and is also a convenient excuse for Aubrey to detach himself from Chilean politics and resume active service with the Royal Navy.

[edit] Editions

  • W.W. Norton & Company; Paperback Reprint edition (1999) (ISBN 0393048446)
  • Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1402591748)

[edit] The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey is the unfinished twenty-first novel in the series. It was released in the autumn of 2004. It comprises the partially corrected typescript of the approximately three chapters completed by O'Brian before his death in January, 2000, as well as a facsimile of the handwritten manuscript which continues beyond the end of the typescript. It is obvious that there would have to have been a lot more polishing and editing of the text to bring it to O'Brian's usual standards. There is a foreword by William Waldegrave and an afterword by Richard Snow, who had written an influential review of the series in the New York Times Book Review many years before. Snow's review has been credited with helping to popularize the series in the United States.

In the United States, this book was released under the simpler title of 21.

The story begins with the Surprise in the Strait of Magellan, heading toward the River Plate for Aubrey to meet the South African squadron and hoist his flag aboard the HMS Suffolk. Anti-Protestant sentiment in Buenos Aires causes trouble for the Surprise, but the arrival of the Papal Nuncio, who is none other than Samuel Mputa, Aubrey's illegitimate son, makes things easier.

Although only three chapters in length, The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey manages to carry Aubrey and Maturin through a few trials, including the difficulties between Aubrey's twin girls and Maturin's daughter Brigid, and a duel between Maturin and a would be suitor of Christine Wood.

[edit] Editions

[edit] See also

  • Frederick Marryat, a 19th century pioneer of the nautical novel, who wrote under the name "Captain Marryat" - a real-life successful naval officer in the Napoleonic wars, which would make him a contemporary of Aubrey and Maturin.
  • C. S. Forester, 20th century novelist whose Horatio Hornblower series in many ways prefigured O'Brian's sea tales.
  • Thomas Cochrane, dashing and controversial captain in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars whose exploits and reverses inspired many events in the fictional careers of both Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower.

[edit] Footnotes

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[edit] Bibliography

  • Richard O'Neill (2003). Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World. Running Press. ISBN 0762415401.
  • Dean King (2001). A Sea of Words: Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales. Henry Holt. ISBN 0805066152.
  • Dean King (2001). Harbors and High Seas: Map Book and Geographical Guide to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian. Henry Holt. ISBN 0805066144.
  • Brian Lavery (2003). Jack Aubrey Commands: An Historical Companion to the Naval World of Patrick O'Brian. Conway Maritime. ISBN 0851779468.
  • Anne Chotzinoff Grossman, Lisa Grossman Thomas (2000). Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels. W W Norton & Co Ltd. ISBN 0393320944.
  • David Miller (2003). The World of Jack Aubrey: Twelve-Pounders, Frigates, Cutlasses, and Insignia of His Majesty's Royal Navy. Running Press Book Publishers. ISBN 0762416521.
  • A.E. Cunningham (Editor) (1994). Patrick O'Brian: A Bibliography and Critical Appreciation. British Library Publishing Division. ISBN 0712310711.

N.B. for books on Patrick O'Brian himself see his own article.

[edit] External links


Patrick O'Brian
Characters: Jack Aubrey | Stephen Maturin
Aubrey-Maturin series: Master and Commander | Post Captain | HMS Surprise | The Mauritius Command | Desolation Island | The Fortune of War | The Surgeon's Mate | The Ionian Mission | Treason's Harbour | The Far Side of the World | The Reverse of the Medal | The Letter of Marque | The Thirteen-Gun Salute | The Nutmeg of Consolation | Clarissa Oakes | The Wine-Dark Sea | The Commodore | The Yellow Admiral | The Hundred Days | Blue at the Mizzen | The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey
Other Novels: Caesar | Hussein | Testimonies | The Catalans | The Golden Ocean | The Unknown Shore | Richard Temple | The Rendezvous and other stories
Non-Fiction: Men-of-War: Life in Nelson's Navy | Picasso | Joseph Banks: A Life
Biographies of O'Brian: Patrick O'Brian - A life revealed | Patrick O'Brian: The Making of the Novelist | Patrick O'Brian: A Bibliography and Critical Appreciation
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