Desolation Island: Book 5 (Aubrey-Maturin) - Hardcover

O’Brian, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002221454 ISBN 13: 9780002221450

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

Synopsis

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.

Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy ― and a treacherous disease which decimates the crew.

The ingredients of a wonderfully powerful and dramatic O’Brian novel are heightened by descriptive writing of rare quality. Nowhere in contemporary prose have the majesty and terror of the sea been more effectively rendered than in the thrilling chase through an Antarctic storm in which Jack’s ship, under-manned and out-gunned, is the quarry not the hunter.

About this title

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

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

‘In a highly competitive field it goes straight to the top. A real first-rater.’ Mary Renault

From the Back Cover:

Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy – and a treacherous disease which decimates the crew.

The ingredients of a wonderfully powerful and dramatic O'Brian novel are heightened by descriptive writing of rare quality. Nowhere in contemporary prose has the majesty and terror of the sea been more effectively rendered than in the thrilling chase through an Antarctic storm in which Jack's ship, under-manned and out-gunned, is the quarry not the hunter.

‘Unlike most sea writers, Mr O'Brian has humour and human nature at his command as well as high adventure. There is good history, fascinating erudition, espionage, romance, fever in the hold, wreck in lost latitudes and an action at sea that for sheer descriptive power can match anything in sea fiction.’
CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, 'Guardian'

'Powerful stuff – but nothing less than we expect from a perfectionist like O'Brian.'
YORKSHIRE POST

'Seldom has it been my pleasure and thrill to have the terror and majesty of the sea more graphically depicted.'
IRISH INDEPENDENT

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0002221454
• ISBN 13: 9780002221450
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368