A MonsterMaritime Posting by Susan Wenger

Patrick O’Brian (1914-2000) was the author of a twenty-novel series about British naval captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey and his particular friend Stephen Maturin, an Irish/Catalan physician and an intelligence officer serving the Royal Navy. A twenty-first book was started before he died, and the incomplete, unpolished and unfinished draft of the three chapters he’d worked on prior to his death was released four years after his death.

Unknown and impoverished for most of his life, he made a living by translating books from French and German into English, until he was recognized in his eighties as one of the seminal writers of our time. His brilliance as a writer is unsurpassed; his descriptions and thoughts are entirely original, based on his own observations of human nature and not on any literary stereotypes. His characters are complex, wholly human, embodying a full range of growth over the series of books. His heroes have their flaws, his villains have their virtues; his incidents, drawn accurately from history, are imbued with life and color and vivid reality. The wild popularity that he enjoyed near the end of his life has been the basis for numerous companion books, including a parody of his series, a cookbook based on foods mentioned in the series, a lexicon of the nautical terms he bandied freely, an atlas and geographical guide to the places mentioned in the series, several series of audiotapes of his books by a number of readers, and two biographies of his life. In addition, three CDs of the classical music the two main characters played in the books have been published.

The movie “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” was based on the Aubrey-Maturin series, drawing incidents from several of the books in that series.

O’Brian was born Richard Patrick Russ, and changed his name to Patrick O’Brian following his intelligence service during World War II. His older brother had changed his name to O’Brian when he joined the air force during that war, and was killed in action. Patrick O’Brian, notoriously reclusive and secretive about his personal life, never chose to answer questions about why he and his brother had changed their names.

His Aubrey-Maturin series was called “The best historical fiction ever written” by the New York Times Review of Books.

In addition to the Aubrey-Maturin series, he wrote several non-series books, numerous short stories, some poetry, essays, and biographies of Joseph Banks and Pablo Picasso.

His ever-growing legion of fans has generated thousands of posts about his works in various chatgroups and internet discussion sites. His work is admired, among many other reasons, for the stunning background education it affords the reader into science, psychology, history, geography, music, culture, warfare, literature, philosophy, and natural history. He totally immerses the reader into the world of nineteenth century wooden sail, the world of naval warfare, and the deep and abiding friendship that transcends the gulf of difference between his main characters, as unlike each other as any two men could be. A very typical comment from new chat members is their astonishment at their new-found interests in the subjects O’Brian touches on so adroitly that the reader is drawn to want to know more and more. Many readers have read through the series several times, discovering new and exciting insights each time. O’Brian had a particular knack for describing a situation or scene in such rich, sensory detail that the reader feels himself to be present, and then NOT showing the resolution of the situation, drawing the reader to draw his own conclusions about what must have happened, deepening the readers’ immersion and involvement in the stories. In various newspaper reviews of his books, he has been compared to Shakespeare, to Jane Austen, and to Herman Melville.

Novels, biographies, major works (non-series):

A Book of Voyages (1947)

Testimonies (Three Bear Witness) (1952)

The Catalans (The Frozen Flame) (1953)

The Road to Samarkand (1954)

The Golden Ocean (1956)

The Unknown Shore (1959)

Richard Temple (1962)

Pablo Ruiz Picasso: A Biography (1976)

Joseph Banks: A Life(1987)

The Aubrey-Maturin series:

Master and Commander (1969)

Post Captain (1972)

H.M.S. Surprise (1973)

The Mauritius Command (1977)

Desolation Island (1978)

The Fortune of War (1979)

The Surgeon’s Mate (1980)

The Ionian Mission (1981)

Treason’s Harbour (1983)

The Far Side of the World (1984)

The Reverse of the Medal (1986)

The Letter of Marque (1988)

The Thirteen Gun Salute (1989)

The Nutmeg of Consolation (1991)

The Truelove (Clarissa Oakes) (1992)

The Wine-Dark Sea (1993)

The Commodore (1994)

The Yellow Admiral (1996)

The Hundred Days (1998)

Blue at the Mizzen (1999)

21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (2004)

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