Master and Commander
Patrick O'Brian (Author)
The beginning to the sweeping Aubrey/Maturin series. "The best sea story I have ever read."—Sir Francis Chichester
This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.
Book Details
- Paperback
- August 1990
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ISBN 978-0-393-30705-4
- 5.5 × 8.3 in
/ 464 pages
- Volume(s): Book 1
- Territory Rights: Worldwide excluding Canada and the British Commonwealth.
Other Formats
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Hardcover
Volume(s): Book 1
Endorsements & Reviews
“Some of you...have never read a Patrick O'Brian novel. I beseech you to start now. Start with Master and Commander, which should be available in paperback from your nearest bookseller. And if he—or she—does not have a copy, then beat the wretched fellow.” — Kevin Myers, Irish Times
“I haven’t read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O’Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn’t stop.” — E. O. Wilson, Boston Globe
“Re-creates with delightful subtlety, the flavor of life aboard a midget British man-of-war plying the western Mediterranean in the year 1800, a year of indecisive naval skirmishes with France and Spain. Even for a reader not especially interested in matters nautical, the author's easy command of the philosophical, political, sensual and social temper of the times flavors a rich entertainment.” — Martin Levin, New York Times Book Review
“The best historical novels ever written… On every page Mr. O’Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don’t, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives.” — Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review
“It has been something of a shock to find myself—an inveterate reader of girl books—obsessed with Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic-era historical novels… What keeps me hooked are the evolving relationships between Jack and Stephen and the women they love.” — Tamar Lewin, New York Times
“I devoured Patrick O’Brian’s 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog.” — Christopher Hitchens, Slate
“I fell in love with his writing straightaway, at first with Master and Commander. It wasn’t primarily the Nelson and Napoleonic period, more the human relationships. …And of course having characters isolated in the middle of the goddamn sea gives more scope. …It’s about friendship, camaraderie. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me.” — Keith Richards
“[O’Brian’s] Aubrey-Maturin series, 20 novels of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, is a masterpiece. It will outlive most of today’s putative literary gems as Sherlock Holmes has outlived Bulwer-Lytton, as Mark Twain has outlived Charles Reade.” — David Mamet, New York Times
“The Aubrey-Maturin series… far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart.” — Ken Ringle, Washington Post
“O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin volumes actually constitute a single 6,443-page novel, one that should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century.” — George Will
“Gripping and vivid… a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit.” — A. S. Byatt
“There is not a writer alive whose work I value over his.” — Stephen Becker, Chicago Sun-Times
“Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.” — James Hamilton-Paterson, New Republic
Also by Patrick O'Brian 
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Paperback
Volume(s): Book 21
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Paperback
Volume(s): Book 20
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Hardcover
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An attractive movie-tie-in jacket for the release of the motion picture Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World starring Russell Crowe: "The best sea story I have ever read."--Sir Francis ChichesterMore
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