| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
› Find signed collectible books: 'Beat to Quarters'
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:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Blue at the Mizzen'
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]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Commodore'
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.› Find signed collectible books: 'Commodore Hornblower'
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]
More editions of Commodore Hornblower:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Desolation Island'
Captain Bligh (yes, the guy from the Bounty) needs to be rescued, and the Royal Navy has the perfect man for the job: Captain Jack Aubrey. With his friend and cloak-and-dagger expert Stephen Maturin in tow, Aubrey sets off for Australia. Several factors, including an attractive spy and a small-scale epidemic, conspire to change his plans, and before long his frigate is being pursued into Antarctic waters by a Dutch man-of-war. Five installments into the series, the Aubrey-Maturin story remains (to quote The Observer) "the best thing afloat since Horatio Hornblower." [via]
More editions of Desolation Island:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Enemy in Sight'
More editions of Enemy in Sight:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Far Side of the World'
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]More editions of The Far Side of the World:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Flying Colors'
More editions of Flying Colors:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Form Line of Battle'
More editions of Form Line of Battle:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fortune of War'
"A marvellously full-flavoured, engrossing book, which towers over its current rivals in the genre like a three-decker over a ship's longboat."Times Literary Supplement
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 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 Stephen's past activities as a secret agent return on him with a vengeance.More editions of The Fortune of War:
› Find signed collectible books: 'H.M.S Surprise: Library Edition'
"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]More editions of H.M.S Surprise: Library Edition:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hornblower and the Atropos'
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]
More editions of Hornblower and the Atropos:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Hornblower and the Hotspur'
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]
More editions of Hornblower and the Hotspur:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hundred Days'
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]
› Find signed collectible books: 'In Gallant Company'
More editions of In Gallant Company:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inshore Squadron'
More editions of The Inshore Squadron:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ionian Mission'
Aubrey and Maturin return to the choppy Mediterranean waters where they first served together, enforcing the Royal Navy's blockade of Toulon. Then the two companions are sent to the Greek Islands, where another series of maritime cliff-hangers awaits them. O'Brian performs his peculiar narrative magic as adeptly as ever, putting (as The Observer would have it) the "spark of character into the sawdust of time." [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Letter of Marque'
"Fine stuff...[The Letter of Marque] leaves the devotee of naval fiction eager for sequels."Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
Captain Jack Aubrey, a brilliant and experienced officer, has been struck off the list of post-captains for a crime he did not commit. His old friend Stephen Maturin, usually cast as a ship's surgeon to mask his discreet activities on behalf of British Intelligence, has bought for Aubrey his former ship the Surprise to command as a privateer, more politely termed a letter of marque. Together they sail on a desperate mission against the French, which, if successful, may redeem Aubrey from the private hell of his disgrace. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lieutenant Hornblower'
More editions of Lieutenant Hornblower:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Master and Commander'
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]
More editions of Master and Commander:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mauritius Command'
"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.More editions of The Mauritius Command:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Midshipman Bolitho'
More editions of Midshipman Bolitho:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Mr. Midshipman Hornblower'
More editions of Mr. Midshipman Hornblower:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Nutmeg of Consolation'
"[The series shows] a joy in language that jumps from every page....You're in for a wonderful voyage."Cutler Durkee, People
Shipwrecked on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies, Captain Aubrey, surgeon and secret intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, and the crew of the Diane fashion a schooner from the wreck. A vicious attack by Malay pirates is repulsed, but the makeshift vessel burns, and they are truly marooned. Their escape from this predicament is one that only the whimsy and ingenuity of Patrick O'Brianor Stephen Maturincould devise.
› Find signed collectible books: 'Passage to Mutiny'
More editions of Passage to Mutiny:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Post Captain'
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]
More editions of Post Captain:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Reverse of the Medal'
"An overwhelming, outstanding novel...!"Irish Times
Captain Jack Aubrey, R. N., ashore after a successful cruise, is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make certain investments in the City. This innocent decision ensnares him in the London criminal underground and in government espionagethe province of his friend Stephen Maturin. Is Aubrey's humiliation and the threatened ruin of his career a deliberate plot? This dark tale is a fitting backdrop to the brilliant characterization and sparkling dialogue which O'Brian's readers have come to expect.More editions of The Reverse of the Medal:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Richard Bolitho'
More editions of Richard Bolitho:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Richard Bolitho-Midshipman'
In 1772 a sixteen-year-old midshipman joins the crew of the "Gorgon" whose mission is to investigate the slave trade on Africa's west coast. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Sloop of War'
More editions of Sloop of War:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Stand into Danger'
More editions of Stand into Danger:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Success to the Brave'
More editions of Success to the Brave:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Surgeon's Mate'
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by despatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attentions of two privateers soon become menacing. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Thirteen Gun Salute'
"In length the series is unique; in qualityand there is not a weak link in the chainit cannot but be ranked with the best of twentieth century historical novels."T. J. Binyon, Independent
Captain Jack Aubrey sets sail for the South China Sea with a new lease on life. Following his dismissal from the Royal Navy (a false accusation), he has earned reinstatement through his daring exploits as a privateer, brilliantly chronicled in The Letter of Marque. Now he is to shepherd Stephen Maturinhis friend, ship's surgeon, and sometimes intelligence agenton a diplomatic mission to prevent links between Bonaparte and the Malay princes which would put English merchant shipping at risk.More editions of The Thirteen Gun Salute:

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tradition of Victory'
More editions of A Tradition of Victory:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Treason's Harbour'
"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]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Truelove'
The fifteenth installment in Patrick O'Brian's widely claimed series of Aubrey/Maturin novels is in equal parts mystery, adventure, and psychological drama.
A British whaler has been captured by an ambitious chief in the sandwich islands at French instigation, and Captain Aubrey, R. N., Is dispatched with the Surprise to restore order. But stowed away in the cable-tier is an escaped female convict. To the officers, Clarissa Harvill is an object of awkward courtliness and dangerous jealousies. Aubrey himself is won over and indeed strongly attracted to this woman who will not speak of her past. But only Aubrey's friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, can fathom Clarissa's secrets: her crime, her personality, and a clue identifying a highly placed English spy in the pay of Napoleon's intelligence service.› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wine Dark Sea'
The sixteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and Patrick O'Brian's first bestseller in the United States.
At the outset of this adventure filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin pursue an American privateer through the Great South Sea. The strange color of the ocean reminds Stephen of Homer's famous description, and portends an underwater volcanic eruption that will create a new island overnight and leave an indelible impression on the reader's imagination.
› Find signed collectible books: 'With All Despatch'
More editions of With All Despatch:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Yellow Admiral: Library Edition'
"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.More editions of The Yellow Admiral: Library Edition:
