The Letter of Marque

by Patrick O'Brian

Overview

"Fine stuff...[The Letter of Marque] leaves the devotee of naval fiction eager for sequels." —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

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. A nighttime battle with an unusual climax, a jewel of great value, and Maturin’s fondness for opium make this segment of Patrick O’Brian’s masterful series both original and profoundly exciting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324020523
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/29/2022
Series:	Aubrey-Maturin Series , #12
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	243,376
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

One of our greatest contemporary novelists, Patrick O’Brian is the author of the twenty volumes of the best-selling Aubrey/Maturin series, as well as many other books, including Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore, and biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso.

Date of Birth:

December 12, 1914

Date of Death:

January 2, 2000

Place of Birth:

Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire

Place of Death:

Dublin, Ireland

Education:

Shebbear College, Devon

Website:

http://www.wwnorton.com/pob/pobhome.htm

What People are Saying About This

Robert Massie

I have been enthralled since reading Master and Commander. Now, having just finished Desolation Island, I find myself curiously anxious to slow down. True, nine volumes await me, but what I have read is so rich and splendid that I need to ponder and digest.

Eudora Welty

[Patrick O'Brian has] the power of bringing near to the reader...savagery and tenderness, beauty and mystery and boldness and dignity.

Editorial Reviews

"There are two types of people in the world: Patrick O’Brian fans, and people who haven’t read him yet."

Guardian - Lucy Eyre

"Both serious and light-hearted, true and sentimental, as comic opera can be."

London Review of Books - Peter Campbell

"O’Brian’s books are as atypical of conventional sea stories as Conrad’s. Like John le Carré, he has erased the boundary separating a debased genre from ‘serious’ fiction. O’Brian is a novelist, pure and simple, one of the best we have."

Los Angeles Times Book Review - Mark Horowitz

Unlike its competitors, who are usually linked to major book publishers, Blackstone specializes in giving new audio life to classics—using prize-winning readers like Vance to bring new and exciting life to neglected works. This is Vance's 17th reading of one of O'Brian's superb seafaring novels about Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, and it's the first time that anyone has made new versions since O'Brian's death in 2000. Vance (who also reads under the names Robert Whitfield and Richard Matthews) is absolutely perfect for O'Brian's sad and stirring tale about Post Captain Aubrey's unjust punishment: Aubrey has been stricken off the Admiralty's list, usually the end of a man's career. But Dr. Maturin uses his own money to buy Aubrey's old ship, HMS Surprise, and turn it into a privateer—a letter of marque. Vance catches the subtle differences between the land-owning Jack, his rough-tongued crew and the Spanish/Irish Maturin. O'Brian fans should relish this excellent audio outing as should anyone with a love of adventure, history, the sea and fine writing. (Reviews, July 6, 1990). (Dec.)

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Publishers Weekly

These novels, thoroughly steeped in their Nelsonic period, were originally hailed as Hornblower's natural successors, and in certain respects—humor, characterization—have succeeded in stealing the wind from that paragon's sails.
—Stephen Vaughan, Observer

Stephen Vaughan