Böcker av Patrick O’Brian

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales now are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.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 has grown into one of the most remarkable literary novelists now writing, 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'.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. This is the seventeenth Aubrey-Maturin novel.Jack Aubrey's long service is at last rewarded: he is promoted to the rank of Commodore and given a squadron of ships to command. His mission is twofold - to make a large dent in the slave trade off the coast of Africa and, on his return, to intercept a French fleet set for Bantry Bay with a cargo of weapons for the disaffected among the Irish. Invention and surprise follow at every turn in this tale of nineteenth-century seamanship, as rich, as compelling, as masterly as any of its predecessors.

Nineteenth novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series: a classic naval adventure, crammed with incident, superbly plotted and utterly gripping. "e;You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian"e; Irish TimesWith the Napoleonic wars looking all but over, Jack Aubrey was already on his way across the Atlantic to try his fortunes under the flag of the young Chilean republic when Napoleon escaped from Elba. Hurriedly appointed to command a squadron flying the broad pennant of a Commodore, Jack was made flag officer in all but name, to operate within and without the Mediterranean on a number of difficult and dangerous missions in an atmosphere of confused political allegiances and with whatever ships could be scraped together at a moment's notice.Conspiracy in the Adriatic, in the Berber and Arab lands of the southern shore of the Mediterranean, night actions, fierce pursuits and the natural wonders of a still uncolonised North Africa all exert their pull on Jack, now ageing - wheezing indeed as he hauls himself aloft - and his old friend Stephen Maturin in this the nineteenth novel in a series that has, like the service it depicts, carried all before it.The latest Aubrey-Maturin novel brings alive the sights and sounds of North Africa as well as the great naval battles in the days immediately following Napoleon's escape from Elba.

Abridged Edition. At the time of his death, Patrick O'Brian had begun to write a novel to follow on from Blue at the Mizzen. These are the chapters he had completed of the final voyage that have been recorded for the audiobook of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin - the greatest friendship of modern literature. The story picks up from the end of Blue at the Mizzen when Jack Aubrey receives 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. This new novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of O'Brian's death, would have been a chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. As the novel opens, we are able to visit these friends we have followed so very far in a rare state of almost perfect felicity. Jack has seen his illegitimate son ably discharging important duties. Sophie and his daughters are with him; Brigid is with her father, she's thriving, and Stephen is with a woman who is very dear to him. Jack, at last, is flying a rear-admiral's flag aboard a ship of the line. The chapters left on O'Brian's death are presented here both in printed version including his corrections to the typescript and a facsimilie of his manuscript, which goes several pages beyond the end of the typescript and includes marginal notes by O'Brian. And so this great roman fleuve comes to an end with Jack, with his sacred blue flag, sailing through fair, sweet days Stephen with his dissections and new love, Killick muttering darkly over the toasted cheese Of course, we would rather have had the whole story; instead we have this proof that O'Brian's powers of observation, his humour and his understanding of his characters were undiminished to the end.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. This is the sixteenth Aubrey-Maturin maritime novel.At the opening of a voyage filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are in pursuit of a privateer sailing under American colours through the Great South Sea. Stephen's objective is to set the revolutionary tinder of South America ablaze to relieve the pressure on the British government which has blundered into war with the young and uncomfortably vigorous United States. The shock and barbarity of hand-to-hand fighting are sharpened by O'Brian's exact sense of period, his eye for landscape and his feel for a ship under sail.

"e;Lucky"e; Jack Aubrey and his friend Stephen Maturin accept a commission to the East Indies in this tale of Nelson's navy.H.M.S. Surprise follows the variable fortunes of Captain Jack Aubrey's career in Nelson's navy as he attempts to hold his ground against admirals, colleagues and the enemy, accepting a mission to convey a British ambassador to the East Indies. The voyage takes him and his friend Stephen Maturin to the strange sights and smells of the Indian sub-continent, and through the archipelago of spice islands where the French have a near-overwhelming superiority.Rarely has a novel managed to convey more vividly the fragility of a sailing ship in a wild sea. Rarely has a historical novelist combined action and lyricism of style in the way that O' Brian does. His superb sense of place, brilliant characterisation, and a vigour and joy of writing lift O'Brian above any but the most exalted of comparisons.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.Patrick O'Brian is regarded by many as the greatest historical novelist now writing. Post Captain, the second novel in his remarkable Aubrey/Maturin series, led Mary Renault to write: 'Master and Commander raised dangerously high expectations; Post Captain triumphantly surpasses them.'This tale begins with Jack Aubrey arriving home from his exploits in the Mediterranean to find England at peace following the Treaty of Amiens. He and his friend Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, begin to live the lives of country gentlemen, hunting, entertaining and enjoying more amorous adventures. Their comfortable existence, however, is cut short when Jack is overnight reduced to a pauper with enough debts to keep him in prison for life. He flees to the continent to seek refuge: instead he finds himself a hunted fugitive as Napoleon has ordered the internment of all Englishmen in France. Aubrey's adventures in escaping from France and the debtors' prison will grip the reader as fast as his unequalled actions at sea.

The fourteenth novel in the classic Aubrey-Maturin series finds Aubrey and Maturin shipwrecked, harassed by pirates and then in the brutal penal colonies of New South Wales.Patrick O'Brian is regarded by many as the greatest living historical novelist writing in English. In The Nutmeg of Consolation, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin begin stranded on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, attacked by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a stay in Batavia and a change of ship, they are caught up in a night chase in the fiercely tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales. It is one of O'Brian's most accomplished and gripping books.

Beasts Royal is the second book written by Patrick O'Brian - made available, at last, for the first time since the 1930s and beautifully repackaged.

Set amongst the rolling vineyards and gentle courtyards of a small seaside village in Catalonia, Patrick O'Brian's second novel is a poignant story of tumultuous love, complex faith and one man's desperate bid to reclaim his humanity.Summoned from his medical practice in China by a bevy of anxious aunts, Alain Roig returns to his Catalan hometown to discover he has been nominated by family members with vested interests in the ancestral property to prevent an impending marriage between his cold, ascetic cousin Xavier and Madeleine, a quiet, introspective village girl of unusual beauty. As Alain seeks to understand his cousin's complex motivations for wooing the unhappy girl, he is slowly drawn into Xavier's dark crisis of faith, the well-worn pattern of the sleepy Catalan days and the tight circle of village gossip that surrounds Madeleine.Throughout, Patrick O'Brian's slow, seductive narrative lures the reader into the landscapes, rhythms and passions of Catalonia, while his subtle, insightful characterisation paints a psychological portrait of a unique way of life and two very different men - one generous and impulsive, the other desperate to revive in his soul the dying flames of affection which he senses could be his salvation.With themes and characters that in many ways prefigure his enormously successful Aubrey/Maturin series, THE CATALANS demonstrates all the insight, lyricism and psychological drama that made O'Brian one of the best storytellers of his generation.