HMS Surprise - Softcover

Patrick O'Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007892756 ISBN 13: 9780007892754

Publisher: Harper Collins Promotion

Synopsis

Third in the series of Aubrey-Maturin adventures, this book is set among the strange sights and smells of the Indian subcontinent, and in the distant waters ploughed by the ships of the East India Company. Aubrey is on the defensive, pitting wits and seamanship against an enemy enjoying overwhelming local superiority. But somewhere in the Indian Ocean lies the prize that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams: the ships sent by Napoleon to attack the China Fleet...

About this title

Review

O'Brian is astonishingly good.

The Aubrey-Maturin series far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart. --Ken Ringle

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

There is not a writer alive whose work I value over his. --Stephen Becker

Gripping and vivid a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit. --A. S. Byatt

I devoured Patrick O Brian s 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog. --Christopher Hitchens

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

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

I devoured Patrick O Brian 's 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog. --Christopher Hitchens

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

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

[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

A first-rate tale of the sea.... I read it with absorption and satisfaction. --Robertson Davies"

Few, very few, books have made my heart thud with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed it. I read it cruising through the tame Adriatic, and several times 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 convinces with his total accuracy even in tiny details. --Helen Lucy Burke"

Few, very few, books have made my heart thud with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed it. I read it cruising through the tame Adriatic, and several times 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 convinces with his total accuracy even in tiny details. --Helen Lucy Burke"

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"

Patrick O Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.--James Hamilton-Paterson"

A first-rate tale of the sea.... I read it with absorption and satisfaction.--Robertson Davies

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

Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.--James Hamilton-Paterson

Book Description

H.M.S. Surprise, the third in O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series, follows the variable fortunes of Captain Jack Aubrey's career in Nelson's navy....

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Collins Promotion
• ISBN 10: 0007892756
• ISBN 13: 9780007892754
• Binding: Paperback