Desolation Island

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FIC6167

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Overview

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.

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Product Details

Part Number: FIC6167

Edition: 2010

Printed and corrected to: No

ISBN: 9780006499244

Publisher: Harper Collins

Author(s): Patrick O'Brian

Author: No

Format: Paperback

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written.

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 Patrick O'Brian

Patrick O’Brian, one of our greatest contemporary novelists, is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey–Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. His first novel, ‘Testimonies’, and his ‘Collected Short Stories’ have recently been republished by HarperCollins. He has translated many works from French into English, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and the first volume of Jean Lacouture’s biography of Charles de Gaulle. 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 also awarded the CBE. In 1997 he was given an honorary doctorate of letters by Trinity College, Dublin. Patrick O’Brian lived for many years in south west France, and died in Dublin in January 2000.

Patrick O’Brian is best known for the Aubrey–Maturin series, acclaimed by Richard Snow in ‘The New York Times’ as ‘the best historical novels ever written’.