"If Jane Austen had written rousing sea yarns, she would have produced something very close to the prose of Patrick O'Brian." —Time

It's 1802. The Treaty of Amiens has brought an end to the hostilities between Great Britain and France. Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, naval surgeon Stephen Maturin, are enjoying the respite in the English countryside, besotted with two beautiful cousins, Sophie Williams and Diana

Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a command, until Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant. Once there he is to mount an expedition against the French-held islands of Mauritius and La Réunion. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains—Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain

"O'Brian is one author who can put a spark of character into the sawdust of time, and The Ionian Mission is another rattling good yarn."—Stephen Vaughan, The ObserverJack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans now of many battles, return in this novel to the seas where they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior captain commanding a line-of-battle ship in the Royal Navy's blockade of Toulon, and this is a longer,

The inspiration for the major new motion picture starring Russell Crowe.The war of 1812 continues, and Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. Stephen Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Disaster in various guises awaits them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the

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

Shipwrecked on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies, Captain Jack Aubrey, surgeon and secret intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, and the crew of the Diane fashion a schooner from the wreck. Though a vicious attack by Malay pirates is repulsed, the makeshift vessel burns, and Aubrey and his crew are truly marooned. Their escape from this predicament is one that only the whimsy and ingenuity of Patrick O'Brian—or Stephen Maturin—could

The sixteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and Patrick O'Brian's first bestseller in the United States.At the outset of this adventure filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin pursue an American privateer through the Great South Sea. The strange color of the ocean reminds Stephen of Homer's famous description, and portends an underwater volcanic eruption that will create a new island overnight and leave an indelible

"There are those already planning this afternoon's trip to the bookstore. Their only reaction is: Thank god, Patrick O'Brian is still writing. To you, I say, not a moment to lose."—John Balzar, Los Angeles TimesLife ashore may once again be the undoing of Jack Aubrey in The Yellow Admiral, Patrick O'Brian's best-selling novel and eighteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series. Aubrey, now a considerable though impoverished landowner,

With his swashbuckling adventures, best-selling novelist Patrick O'Brian transports you to the high seas of old where privateers lurk in the mist, and great ships fight to control the waterways. Blue at the Mizzen hoists the excitement to new heights as British frigate commander Jack Aubrey stakes everything on a desperate raid against the mighty Spanish fleet. Ever since Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, Captain Aubrey's prospects in the