H. M. S. Surprise

by Patrick O'Brian

Overview

"Few, very few books have made my heart thud with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed it." —Helen Lucy Burke, Irish Press

In H.M.S. Surprise, British naval officer Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin face near-death and tumultuous romance in the distant waters ploughed by the ships of the East India Company. Tasked with ferrying a British ambassador to the Sultan of Kampong, they find themselves on a prolonged voyage aboard a Royal Navy frigate en route to the Malay Peninsula. In this new sphere, Aubrey is on the defensive, pitting wits and seamanship against an enemy who enjoys overwhelming local superiority. But somewhere in the Indian Ocean lies the prize that could secure him a marriage to his beloved Sophie and make him rich beyond his wildest dreams: the ships sent by Napoleon to attack the China Fleet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393541601
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Series:	Aubrey-Maturin Series , #3
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	57,522
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.00(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

Robertson Davies

"A first-rate tale to see....I read it with absorbtion and satisfaction."

Editorial Reviews

"It has been said that this series is some of the finest historical fiction of our time.… Aubrey and Maturin have been described as better than Holmes and Watson, the equal of Quixote and Panza.… All this is true. And the marvel is, it hardly says enough."

Los Angeles Times - John Balzar

"As sinewy and virile as its predecessors, this is a copper-bottomed investment for the numerous fans of Jack Aubrey."

Daily Telegraph - Sarah Lake

Few, very few, books have made my heart thud with excitement H.M.S Surprise managed it.

Irish Press

This long-out-of-print naval adventure in the series that started with Master and Commander (see The Mauritius Command below) finds Captain Jack Aubrey in charge of the H.M.S. Surprise. His ship's surgeon and friend, Stephen Maturin, sidelines in espionage and natural science. Through Maturin's eyes we see the environment in great detail--down to the species of beetle that inhabits an area. The Surprise is commissioned to deliver an English envoy to India. It is the early 19th century, when England fought for supremacy over France and Napoleon's navy, and Aubrey itches for an engagement with the crafty old French admiralpk Linois. He hopes to capture the French ship and earn the prize money that would clear his debt and allow him to marry Sophie, his true love. O'Brian knows his history and sailing, as is evident in the rich particulars--sometimes overwhelming. Those who don't know their foretopsail from their maintopsail will at times be as lost as landlubbers on a stormy sea. Stretching its genre but never escaping it, the novel will impress those who enjoy swashbucklers. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

These two selections represent a series of abridged audiobook versions of O'Brian's works narrated by Robert Hardy, that most blustery and unstudied of British actors. Hardy reads the stories cold, but here it works. He uses his voice to evoke everything from brutality to mannered drawing-room excesses to the physical threat of a storm at sea. The stories are superb depictions of life on a British man-of-war and incorporate O'Brian's exquisitely accurate historical detail (Testimonies, Audio Reviews, LJ 7/96). The friendship of protagonists Capt. Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin plays out against an expanse of ocean, from India to the Atlantic, with a full complement of battles and adventures at sea for devotees of naval fiction. Highly recommended.--Mark Pumphrey, Polk Cty. P.L., Columbus, NC

Library Journal

"Few, very few, books have made my heart sag with excitement. 'H.M.S. Surprise' managed it. I read it cruizing through the tame Adriatic, in Silver Ponds found myself forced to pace about the deck to calm my pulse....Patrick O'Brian's erudition is phenomenal, as is his capacity for creating another completely believable world. He convices that his total accuracy even in tiny detail."

Helen Lucy Burk

"The best historical novel ever written." - New York Times Book Review

Richard Snow