Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. All eighteen books are to be re-issued in hardback by HarperCollins with stunning new jackets.
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans 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 sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder, colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days.
A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship, and his proverbial luck when fighting against odds, come triumphantly into their own. The book ends with as fierce and thrilling an action as any in this magnificent series of novels.
About the Author :
Patrick O’Brian, until his death in 2000, was one of our greatest contemporary novelists. He is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey–Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He is the author of many other books including Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime’s contribution to literature. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He lived for many years in South West France and he died in Dublin in January 2000.
Review :
‘…full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein… Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.’
James Hamilton-Paterson
‘You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O’Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.’
Kevin Myers, Irish Times
‘I envy those who have never read Patrick O’Brian: an enormous pleasure awaits you.’
Irish Times
‘The Ionian Mission is witty, funny, erudite and exciting… a triumph’
Helen Lucy Burke, Irish Press
‘Cemented over the years and across seven seas by good writing and good humour, the friendship between surgeon and intelligence agent Maturin and that lion-in-action and ass ashore, Jack Aubrey, may yet rank with Athos/D’Artagnan or Holmes/Watson as part of the permanent literature of adventure.’
Stephen Vaughan, Observer
