books tagged “British Navy”

books tagged “British Navy”

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Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316289418 (0-316-28941-8)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
Horatio Hornblower, now Admiral, sails over seas as challenging as any in his victorious career. As admiral in charge of His Britannic Majesty's West Indies Station he is as gallant, daring, implosive as ever. In this tense time after Napoleon's defeat, all kinds of vagabonds, revolutionaries, Imperial Guards. and pirates come sailing into the waters where Hornblower is working his small contingent of naval vessels to preserve the peace and eliminate piracy. With intrepid daring and brilliant strategies, Hornblower wins his victories. With this series of adventures, Volume 11, Hornblower's professional life as a British naval officer reaches its climax, not in a battle against men, but against nature. Here the inner Hornblower shows his colors. [via]
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Beat to Quarters
by C. S. Forester

ISBN 0316289329 (0-316-28932-9)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
June 1808, somewhere west of Nicaragua-a site suitable for spectacular sea battles. The Admiralty has ordered Captain Horatio Hornblower, now in command of the thirty-six-gun HMS Lydia, to form an alliance against the Spanish colonial government with an insane Spanish landowner; to find a water route across the Central American isthmus; and "to take, sink, burn or destroy" the fifty-gun Spanish ship of the line Natividad or face court-martial. A daunting enough set of orders-even if the happily married captain were not woefully distracted by the passenger he is obliged to take on in Panama: Lady Barbara Wellesley. [via]
More editions of Beat to Quarters:
- Beat to Quarters: ISBN 0523413904 (0-523-41390-4)
  Softcover, Kensington Pub Corp
- Beat to Quarters: ISBN 0316289329 (0-316-28932-9)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
Blue at the Mizzen
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 039332107X (0-393-32107-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Almost three decades after commencing his maritime epic with Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian is still at it. The 20th episode, Blue at the Mizzen, is another swashbuckling adventure on the high seas, complete with romantic escapades from smoggy London to Sierra Leone, diplomacy, espionage, the intricacies of warfare, and imperial brinksmanship. As always, these events are bound up in the ongoing friendship between two officers of the Royal Navy. Jack Aubrey is the naval captain, bold yet compassionate, innovative yet cautious, as fearless in war as he is bumbling in affairs of the heart and household. His boon companion Stephen Maturin is the ship's surgeon--and additionally a spy for the British government, a wealthy Catalonian aristocrat, a doting Irish father, and an avid naturalist.
That may sound like a lot to keep track of. However, it's not necessary to carry around a scorecard or ship's roster while reading Blue at the Mizzen. The ostensible issue is whether Jack will finally be promoted to Admiral of the Blue. But long before he hears any word from the Napoleonic era's equivalent of Personnel, he loses half his crew to desertion, his ship undergoes a disastrous collision, and the entire company comes close to perishing in the ice-choked seas off Cape Horn. Meanwhile, the widowed Maturin issues a surprising proposal of marriage to a beautiful, mud-bespattered fellow naturalist while trekking through an African mangrove swamp. (The two lovebirds happen to be searching for a rare variant of Caprimulgus longipennis, the long-tailed nightjar, which they hope to surprise in full mating plumage.)
Still, this is hardly a plot-driven novel. O'Brian takes time to get anywhere, and invariably enjoys the journey more than the arrival. So even as we get constant hints of the climax to come--Jack's spectacular naval action on behalf of the infant Republic of Chile--we don't mind hearing about the nuances of shipboard existence or the secret life of the white-faced tree duck. We're treated, for example, to this snippet about managed care, circa 1816:
Poll, Maggie and a horse-leech from the starboard watch have been administering enemas to the many, many cases of gross surfeit that have now replaced the frostbites, torsions, and debility of the recent past, the very recent past. Strong, fresh, seal-meat has not its equal for upsetting the seaman's metabolism: he is much better kept on biscuits, Essex cheese, and a very little well-seethed salt pork--kept on short commons.
And we're grateful! We can only hope that the elderly author will favor us with at least one more novel, so that his avid followers can avoid their own form of short commons. Life without Aubrey and Maturin would be a deprivation indeed. --Andrew Himes [via]
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The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
by Caroline Alexander

ISBN 067003133X (0-670-03133-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
More than two centuries have passed since Master's Mate Fletcher Christian mutinied against Lieutenant Bligh on a small, armed transport vessel called Bounty . Why the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain vivid and enthralling is as intriguing as the truth behind the legend. In giving the Bounty mutiny its historical due, Caroline Alexander has chosen to frame her narrative by focusing on the court-martial of the ten mutineers who were captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in England. This fresh perspective wonderfully revivifies the entire saga, and the salty, colorful language of the captured men themselves conjures the events of that April morning in 1789, when Christian's breakdown impelled every man on a fateful course: Bligh and his loyalists on the historic open boat voyage that revealed him to be one of history's great navigators; Christian on his restless exile; and the captured mutineers toward their day in court. As the book unfolds, each figure emerges as a full-blown character caught up in a drama that may well end on the gallows. And as Alexander shows, it was in a desperate fight to escape hanging that one of the accused defendants deliberately spun the mutiny into the myth we know today-of the tyrannical Lieutenant Bligh of the Bounty . Ultimately, Alexander concludes that the Bounty mutiny was sparked by that most unpredictable, combustible, and human of situations-the chemistry between strong personalities living in close quarters. Her account of the voyage, the trial, and the surprising fates of Bligh, Christian, and the mutineers is an epic of ambition, passion, pride, and duty at the dawn of the Romantic era. [via]
More editions of The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty:
- The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty: ISBN 067003133X (0-670-03133-X)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain
by Robert Harvey

ISBN 0786709235 (0-7867-0923-5)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub

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More editions of Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain:
- Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain: ISBN 0786707690 (0-7867-0769-0)
  Hardcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
- Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain: ISBN 0786709235 (0-7867-0923-5)
  Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
The Commodore
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 1568952716 (1-56895-271-6)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

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Book summary:
The seventeenth novel in the best-selling Aubrey/Maturin series of naval tales, which the New York Times Book Review has described as "the best historical novels ever written."
Having survived a long and desperate adventure in the Great South Sea, Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin return to England to very different circumstances. For Jack it is a happy homecoming, at least initially, but for Stephen it is disastrous: his little daughter appears to be autistic, incapable of speech or contact, while his wife, Diana, unable to bear this situation, has disappeared, her house being looked after by the widowed Clarissa Oakes.

Much of The Commodore takes place on land, in sitting rooms and in drafty castles, but the roar of the great guns is never far from our hearing. Aubrey and Maturin are sent on a bizarre decoy mission to the fever-ridden lagoons of the Gulf of Guinea to suppress the slave trade. But their ultimate destination is Ireland, where the French are mounting an invasion that will test Aubrey's seamanship and Maturin's resourcefulness as a secret intelligence agent.

The subtle interweaving of these disparate themes is an achievement of pure storytelling by one of our greatest living novelists.
[via]
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Commodore Hornblower
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316289388 (0-316-28938-8)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
These thrilling tales of high-seas adventure in the Napoleonic era, which Winston Churchill found "vastly entertaining" and Ernest Hemingway recommended to "every literate I know", are being eagerly embraced by a new generation of readers. Back Bay takes pleasure in reissuing these classic tales in handsome new trade paperback editions.
-- The Hornblower renaissance is in full sail with a nearly tenfold increase in sales: more than I5O, OOO Hornblower books sold in the first six months of 1999.
-- The A&E television network's series of original movies based on Hornblower's adventures have been tremendously successful -- praised by critics, enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of viewers, and winner of the Emmy Award for best miniseries.
-- Two new movies will be premiering in the spring on A&E.
-- Readers and booksellers who admire Patrick O'Brian's novels delight in discovering this "new" series of nautical adventure stories. [via]
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Devil to Pay
by Cyril Northcote Parkinson

ISBN 1590130022 (1-59013-002-2)
Softcover, McBooks Pr

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The Far Side of the World
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393308626 (0-393-30862-6)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
The inspiration for the major new motion picture starring Russell Crowe.
The war of 1812 continues, and Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. Stephen Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Disaster in various guises awaits them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the Pacific: typhoons, castaways, shipwrecks, murder, and criminal insanity. [via]
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Flying Colors
by C. S. Forester

ISBN 0316289396 (0-316-28939-6)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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More editions of Flying Colors:
- Flying Colors: ISBN 0523421079 (0-523-42107-9)
  Softcover, St Martins Pr
- Flying Colours: ISBN 0316289396 (0-316-28939-6)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Fortune of War
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393308138 (0-393-30813-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Captain Jack Aubrey, R.N., arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the Royal Navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a dispatch vessel, but the War of 1812 breaks out while they are en route. Bloody actions precipitate them both into new and unexpected scenes where Stephens past activities as a secret agent return on him with a vengeance. [via]
More editions of The Fortune of War:
- The Fortune of War: ISBN 0786219270 (0-7862-1927-0)
  Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
- The Fortune of War: ISBN 0393308138 (0-393-30813-8)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
The Golden Ocean
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393315371 (0-393-31537-1)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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More editions of The Golden Ocean:
- The Golden Ocean: ISBN 0754020207 (0-7540-2020-7)
  Softcover, Chivers
- The Golden Ocean: ISBN 0393315371 (0-393-31537-1)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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H.M.S Surprise: Library Edition
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393307611 (0-393-30761-1)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
"Few, very few books have made my heart thud with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed it."Helen Lucy Burke, Irish Press
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 dream: the ships sent by Napoleon to attack the China Fleet... [via]
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Hornblower and the Atropos
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316289299 (0-316-28929-9)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
Hodder Headline Audiobooks presents abridged readings of some of the finest in drama, classic literature, popular fiction, poetry, children's stories, and religious and inspirational works. Among Hodder Headline's outstanding cast of readers and performers are Juliet Stevenson, Anna Massey, Simon Callow, Stephen Fry, and Dame Judi Dench. Each set of cassettes is attractively packaged and shrink-wrapped. [via]
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Hornblower and the Hotspur
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316290467 (0-316-29046-7)
Softcover, Back Bay Books

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Book summary:
April 1803. The Peace of Amiens is breaking down. Napoleon is building ships and amassing an army just across the Channel. Horatio Hornblower-who, at age twenty-seven, has already distinguished himself as one of the most daring and resourceful officers in the Royal Navy-commands the three-masted Hotspur on a dangerous reconnaissance mission that evolves, as war breaks out, into a series of spectacular confrontations. All the while, the introspective young commander struggles to understand his new bride and mother-in-law, his officers and crew, and his own "accursed unhappy temperament"-matters that trouble him more, perhaps, than any of Bonaparte's cannonballs. [via]
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Hornblower During the Crisis
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0523421109 (0-523-42110-9)
Softcover, St Martins Pr

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This last-written adventure of Horatio Hornblower finds him still a captain; the Napoleonic Wars rage on. Though the tale was incomplete at Forester's death, it offers a full measure of action at sea. [via]
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- Hornblower During the Crisis: ISBN 0523421109 (0-523-42110-9)
  Softcover, St Martins Pr
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Hornblower During the Crisis and Two Stories
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316289159 (0-316-28915-9)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co

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This last-written adventure of Horatio Hornblower finds him still a captain; the Napoleonic Wars rage on. Though the tale was incomplete at Forester's death, it offers a full measure of action at sea. [via]
More editions of Hornblower During the Crisis and Two Stories:
- Hornblower During the Crisis and Two Stories: ISBN 0316289159 (0-316-28915-9)
  Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
Hornblower During the Crisis and Two Stories Hornblowers Temptation and the Last Encounter
by C. S. Forester

ISBN 0316289442 (0-316-28944-2)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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- Hornblower During the Crisis and Two Stories Hornblowers Temptation and the Last Encounter: ISBN 0316289442 (0-316-28944-2)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Hundred Days
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393319792 (0-393-31979-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
The year is 1815, and Europe's most unpopular (not to mention tiniest) empire-builder has escaped from Elba. In The Hundred Days, it's up to Jack Aubrey--and surgeon-cum-spymaster Stephen Maturin--to stop Napoleon in his tracks. How? For starters, Aubrey and his squadron have been dispatched to the Adriatic coast, to keep Bonapartist shipbuilders from beefing up the French navy. Meanwhile, one Sheik Ibn Hazm is fomenting an Islamic uprising against the Allies. The only way to halt this maneuver is to intercept the sheik's shipment of gold--because in the Napoleonic era, as in our own, even the most ardent of mercenaries requires a salary.
The Hundred Days is the 19th (and, we are told, the penultimate) installment of O'Brian's epic. Like many of its predecessors, it features a fairly swashbuckling plot, complete with cannon fire, exotic disguises, and Aubrey's suspenseful, slow-motion pursuit of an Algerian xebek. Yet it never turns into a mere exercise in Hornblowerism. Partly this is due to O'Brian's delicate touch with character--the relationship between extroverted Aubrey and introverted Maturin has deepened with each book, and even Aubrey's reunion with his childhood companion Queenie Keith is full of novelistic nuance: "They sat smiling at one another. An odd pair: handsome creatures both, but they might have been of the same sex or neither." Nor does the author focus too exclusively on his dynamic duo. Indeed, The Hundred Days is very much a chronicle of a floating community, which Maturin describes as "his own village, his own ship's company, that complex entity so much more easily sensed than described: part of his natural habitat."
Finally, O'Brian shows his usual expertise in balancing the great events with the most minuscule ones. Other authors have written about battles at sea, and still others have recorded the rapid rise and fall of Napoleon's fortunes after his escape from confinement. But who else would give equal time--and an equal charge of delight--to Maturin's discovery of an anomalous nuthatch? --James Marcus [via]
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The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy
by Nicholas Blake, Richard Russell Lawrence

ISBN 1861760906 (1-86176-090-6)
Hardcover, Chatham Pub

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Lieutenant Hornblower
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316290637 (0-316-29063-7)
Softcover, Back Bay Books

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Book summary:
The nineteenth century dawns and the Napoleonic Wars rage as Horatio Hornblower faces the fury of the French and Spanish fleets combined. Amidst the hissing of wet wads, the stifling heat of white-hot cannonshot and the clamour of a mutinous crew, new Lieutenant Hornblower will need all of his seafaring cunning to overcome his first challenge in independent command on the high seas. And while blood and violence flow thick and fast aboard a beleaguered HMS Renown, the aftermath of war promises intrigue of an entirely different order: Maria, a young senorita, who might just soften the steely resolve of a young lieutenant. This is the second of eleven books chronicling the adventures of C. S. Forester's inimitable nautical hero, Horatio Hornblower. [via]
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Life in Nelson's Navy
by Dudley Pope

ISBN 1557505160 (1-55750-516-0)
Softcover, Naval Inst Pr

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- Life in Nelson's Navy: ISBN 1557505160 (1-55750-516-0)
  Softcover, Naval Inst Pr
Life in Nelsons Navy 1793-1815
by Dudley Pope

ISBN 0870213466 (0-87021-346-6)
Hardcover, Naval Inst Pr

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- Life in Nelsons Navy 1793-1815: ISBN 0870213466 (0-87021-346-6)
  Hardcover, Naval Inst Pr
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Lord Hornblower
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316289434 (0-316-28943-4)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
"In this, the tenth volume in C.S. Forester's series of classic naval adventure tales, Horatio Hornblower must rescue a man he knows to be a tyrant from the mutiny of his crew--a dubious chore, but one that leads Hornblower, with the aid of his old love, Marie, to the glorious conclusion of his own battle with Napoleon." [via]
More editions of Lord Hornblower:
- Lord Hornblower: ISBN 0523421095 (0-523-42109-5)
  Softcover, St Martins Pr
- Lord Hornblower: ISBN 0316289434 (0-316-28943-4)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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Losing Nelson
by Barry Unsworth

ISBN 0393321177 (0-393-32117-7)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
Perched high atop his pedestal in London, Admiral Horatio Nelson has remained one of the loftiest icons of English nationalism. Now, however, he has been seriously rattled by Barry Unsworth's Losing Nelson, a gripping study of the dark side of heroism and hero worship. In the basement of his large, anonymous North London house, Charles Cleasby obsessively reenacts the admiral's every military maneuver: "Usually when we fought these battles I had a feeling of fulfilment, they brought me closer to him..." Cleasby's admiration also extends upstairs--to his life's work, a biography of the great man. His only assistant in his heroic struggle is Miss Lily (real name, Lilian Butler), a hired secretary who carefully transcribes his painstaking pages. Cleasby wants nothing better than to rescue Nelson from the revisionist clutches of unpatriotic academic cynics. Alas, his passion soon reveals a sinister side, as he declares that he is in fact the admiral's twin:
I will say what I think angels are. They can be dark or bright, but they all have the gift of spontaneity, of creating themselves anew. This is a pure form of energy, and Horatio was winged with it. All the same, angels are not complete, they need their counterparts, the dark needs the bright, the hidden needs the open, and vice versa. Sometimes they meet and recognize each other. Sometimes, as with Horatio and me, the pairing occurs over spaces of time or distance. He became a bright angel on February 14, 1797, during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. I became his dark twin on September 9, 1997, when I too broke the line.
As the book builds to its inexorable climax--and Cleasby's only solace is his amanuensis--Losing Nelson confirms Unsworth as one of England's most elegant, understated novelists. His historical grasp of Nelson is outstanding. But his book really excels, and also profoundly disturbs, in its exploration of the tarnished angels of patriotism. --Jerry Brotton [via]
More editions of Losing Nelson:
- Losing Nelson: ISBN 0393321177 (0-393-32117-7)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
The Making of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393325539 (0-393-32553-9)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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- The Making of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World: ISBN 0393325539 (0-393-32553-9)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
The Making of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
by Tom McGregor

ISBN 0393058654 (0-393-05865-4)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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- The Making of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World: ISBN 0393058654 (0-393-05865-4)
  Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Master and Commander
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393307050 (0-393-30705-0)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
An attractive movie-tie-in jacket for the release of the motion picture Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World starring Russell Crowe: "The best sea story I have ever read."--Sir Francis Chichester This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war are faultless rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle. It is the dawn of the nineteenth century; Britain is at war with Napoleon's France. When Jack Aubrey, a young lieutenant in Nelson's navy, is promoted to captain, he inherits command of HMS Sophie , an old, slow brig unlikely to make his fortune. But Captain Aubrey is a brave and gifted seaman, his thirst for adventure and victory immense. With the aid of his friend Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and secret intelligence agent, Aubrey and his crew engage in one thrilling battle after another, their journey culminating in a stunning clash with a mighty Spanish frigate against whose guns and manpower the tiny Sophie is hopelessly outmatched. [via]
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The Mauritius Command
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 039330762X (0-393-30762-X)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
"Jack's assignment: to capture the Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius from the French. That campaign forms the narrative thread of this rollicking sea saga. But its substance is more beguiling still..."Elizabeth Peer, Newsweek
Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a commanduntil Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant, there to mount an expedition against the French-held islands of Mauritius and La Réunion. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captainsLord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity pushes his crew to the verge of mutiny.
[via]
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Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
by Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0316289124 (0-316-28912-4)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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Book summary:
Horatio Hornblower was born in C.S. Forester's fertile imagination and became arguably more famous, certainly more personal, than Nelson, Cook and Drake combined. He fought in a dozen major campaigns during the Napoleonic wars, and it was in these pages that we first got a glimmer of just how much Bonaparte was hated, and why.
Forester's genius was not tidy, and so this story, which sets Hornblower on course at age 17, is Forester's sixth book about him, though it should have been the first. LIEUTENANT HORNBLOWER, which follows it, carries the intrepid young man another step forward in his career. [via]
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Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
by Rosemary Border, Cecil Scott Forester

ISBN 0194230414 (0-19-423041-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr

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Book summary:
'Hornblower fired. There was a small cloud of smoke, but no bang. This is death, he thought. My pistol was the unloaded one.' But Horatio Hornblower does not die. He survives the duel with Simpson, learns to overcome his seasickness, and goes on to risk his life many times over. It is 1793, Britain is at war with France, and life on a sailing ship of war is hard and dangerous. But the hardest battles are fought by Hornblower within himself. [via]
More editions of Mr. Midshipman Hornblower:
- Mr. Midshipman Hornblower: ISBN 0194230414 (0-19-423041-4)
  Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
The Nelson Companion
by Colin White

ISBN 1557506191 (1-55750-619-1)
Hardcover, Naval Institute Press

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More editions of The Nelson Companion:
- The Nelson Companion: ISBN 0750937505 (0-7509-3750-5)
  Softcover, Sutton Pub Ltd
- The Nelson Companion: ISBN 1557506191 (1-55750-619-1)
  Hardcover, Naval Institute Press
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Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1793-1815
by Brian Lavery, Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 1591146119 (1-59114-611-9)
Softcover, Naval Inst Pr

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Book summary:
Foreword by Patrick O'Brian. Encyclopedic in scope and filled with more than 400 illustrations, this large-format book provides an in-depth description of the Royal Navy in Lord Nelson's time. Among the subjects covered are ship design and construction, ship handling and navigation, fighting tactics and gunnery techniques, the Navy's administration, foreign navies of the day, and life at sea. Written by one of the world's leading naval authorities in the age of sail, this book has an established reputation as the most authentic and complete picture of Nelson's Navy ever published. 412 illustrations. Appendixes. Index. Paperback. 10 x 12 inches. [via]
More editions of Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1793-1815:
- Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1793-1815: ISBN 0870212583 (0-87021-258-3)
  Hardcover, Naval Inst Pr
- Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men, and Organization, 1793-1815: ISBN 1591146119 (1-59114-611-9)
  Softcover, Naval Inst Pr
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Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed The World
by Roy Adkins

ISBN 0670034487 (0-670-03448-7)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
On October 21, 1805, as Britains Royal Navy under the command of Horatio Nelson clashed with Napoleons forces in an epic sea battle off the coast of Spain, the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Though the cost was high-and Nelson himself was killed-the British victory prevented Napoleon from invading Britain and paved the way for the eventual defeat of the French emperor. Without Trafalgar there would have been no Waterloo. The Battle of Trafalgar set Britain on its vast imperial course.
Now, on the battles 200th anniversary, Roy Adkins offers readers a brutally vivid, gunport-level account of the battle. For more than five hours the crews of the British, French, and Spanish ships struggled under the constant barrage of cannon and musket fire amid choking fumes, and ear- splitting explosions. While the men maneuvered the ships and kept the cannons firing, the women tended the sick and helped the boys carry gunpowder cartridges to the gun decks. Capturing as never before the harsh conditions in which sailors lived and died, the mechanics of nautical warfare, and the relentless violence of 19th century naval combat, Nelsons Trafalgar is a must read for fans of military history and Patrick OBrian. [via]
More editions of Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed The World:
- Nelson's Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed The World: ISBN 0670034487 (0-670-03448-7)
  Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Post Captain
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393307069 (0-393-30706-9)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
As the first sentences of Post Captain roll off actor Robert Hardy's tongue, you know you're somewhere you've never been before: the high seas in the early 19th century. Hardy's rich rendition of Patrick O'Brian's 1972 novel, a follow-up to Master and Commander, starts with series heroes Captain Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin enjoying a brief period of peace. Soon enough, though, the Napoleonic Wars resume, and the seafaring adventures continue. (Running time: 4.5 hours, three cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]
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Ramage
by Dudley Pope

ISBN 0935526765 (0-935526-76-5)
Softcover, McBooks Pr

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Book summary:
In a daring foray, under the very nose of the French Mediterranean fleet, Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage is to sail his tiny cutter close in to the Italian shore and rescue a party of stranded aristocrats from Napoleon's fast-advancing army.
[via]
More editions of Ramage:
- Ramage: ISBN 0935526765 (0-935526-76-5)
  Softcover, McBooks Pr
Ship of the Line
by C. S. Forester

ISBN 0316289361 (0-316-28936-1)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co

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More editions of Ship of the Line:
- Ship of the Line: ISBN 0523420749 (0-523-42074-9)
  Softcover, Kensington Pub Corp
- Ship of the Line: ISBN 0316289361 (0-316-28936-1)
  Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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Treason's Harbour
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 0393308634 (0-393-30863-4)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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Book summary:
"The finest writer of sea-stories in the English language."J. de Courcy Ireland
All Patrick O'Brian's strengths are on parade in this novel of action and intrigue, set partly in Malta, partly in the treacherous, pirate-infested waters of the Red Sea. While Captain Aubrey worries about repairs to his ship, Stephen Maturin assumes the center stage for the dockyards and salons of Malta are alive with Napoleon's agents, and the admiralty's intelligence network is compromised. Maturin's cunning is the sole bulwark against sabotage of Aubrey's daring mission. [via]
More editions of Treason's Harbour:
- Treason's Harbour: ISBN 0393310264 (0-393-31026-4)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
- Treason's Harbour: ISBN 0393308634 (0-393-30863-4)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy
by N.A.M. Rodger

ISBN 0393314693 (0-393-31469-3)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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More editions of The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy:
- The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy: ISBN 0870219871 (0-87021-987-1)
  Hardcover, Naval Inst Pr
- The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy: ISBN 0393314693 (0-393-31469-3)
  Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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The Yellow Admiral: Library Edition
by Patrick O'Brian

ISBN 1568954301 (1-56895-430-1)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc

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Book summary:
"There are those already planning this afternoon's trip to the bookstore. Their only reaction is: Thank god, Patrick O'Brian is still writing. To you, I say, not a moment to lose."John Balzar, Los Angeles Times
Life ashore may once again be the undoing of Jack Aubrey in The Yellow Admiral, Patrick O'Brian's best-selling novel and eighteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series. Aubrey, now a considerable though impoverished landowner, has dimmed his prospects at the Admiralty by his erratic voting as a Member of Parliament; he is feuding with his neighbor, a man with strong Navy connections who wants to enclose the common land between their estates; he is on even worse terms with his wife, Sophie, whose mother has ferreted out a most damaging trove of old personal letters. Even Jack's exploits at sea turn sour: in the storm waters off Brest he captures a French privateer laden with gold and ivory, but this at the expense of missing a signal and deserting his post. Worst of all, in the spring of 1814, peace breaks out, and this feeds into Jack's private fears for his career.

Fortunately, Jack is not left to his own devices. Stephen Maturin returns from a mission in France with the news that the Chileans, to secure their independence, require a navy, and the service of English officers. Jack is savoring this apparent reprieve for his career, as well as Sophie's forgiveness, when he receives an urgent dispatch ordering him to Gibraltar: Napoleon has escaped from Elba. [via]
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