The novel′s stirring action follows on from that of The Hundred Days. Napoleon′s hundred days of freedom and his renewed threat to Europe have ended at Waterloo and Aubrey has finally, as the title suggests, become a blue level admiral. He and Maturin have - at last - set sail on their much postponed mission to Chile. Vivid with the salty tang of life at sea, O′Brian′s writing is as powerful as ever - whether he writes of naval hierarchies, night actions or of the most celebrated fictional friendship since that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Blue at the Mizzen also brings alive the sights and sounds of revolutionary South America in a story as exciting as any O′Brian has written.

In The Nutmeg of Consolation, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin begin stranded on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, attacked by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a stay in Batavia and a change of ship, they are caught up in a night chase in the fiercely tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales.

Caesar is a tale of survival, love, and loyalty, by a young O'Brian who was rightly hailed, even at fifteen, as the 'boy-Thoreau'. The fascinating career of the literary genius behind Aubrey-Maturin begins here.'I dimly felt sorry that I had needlessly killed these two useless things, for though I was hungry I could not bring myself to eat these smelly men.'Written when Patrick O'Brian was just fourteen, this is the enchanting, bloodthirsty story of Caesar -- whose father was a giant panda, but his mother a snow leopard. With the dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian would come to be loved for, we see the tragedies of Caesar's childhood, his capture and taming, and finally his rise to fatherhood under the iron rule of human masters.

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles, return in this novel to the seas they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior captain commanding a line-of-battle ship sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder and colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days.A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship, and his proverbial luck when fighting against odds, come triumphantly into their own. The book ends with as fierce and thrilling action as any in this magnificent series of novels.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: To the delight of millions of Patrick O'Brian fans, here is the final, partial installment of the Aubrey/Maturin series, for the first time in paperback. Blue at the Mizzen (novel #20) ended with Jack Aubrey getting the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. The next novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of the author's death, would have been the chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. The three chapters left on O'Brian's desk are presented here both in printed version-including his corrections to the typescript-and a facsimile of his manuscript, which goes several pages beyond the end of the typescript to include a duel between Stephen Maturin and an impertinent officer who is courting his fiancée. Of course we would rather have had the whole story; instead we have this proof that O'Brian's powers of observation, his humor, and his understanding of his characters were undiminished to the end.

A glittering adventure set in India at the height of the British Raj. The New York Times compared Patrick O'Brian's early novel to Kipling's Kim and called it "a gorgeous entertainment."Published when he was in his early twenties, Patrick O'Brian writes of Hussein: "In the writing of the book I learnt the rudiments of my calling: but more than that, it opened a well of joy that has not yet run dry." Hussein is a young mahout--or elephant handler--who falls in love with a beautiful and elusive girl, Sashiya, and arranges for another of her suitors to be murdered with a fakir's curse. The dead man's relatives vow vengeance. Hussein escapes and his adventures begin: snake-charming, sword-fighting, spying, stealing a fortune, and returning triumphantly to claim his bride.All of this is set against an evocatively exotic India, full of bazaars, temples, and beautiful women-- despite the fact that O'Brian had never been to the East when he wrote the story.

Much of the plot of Treason′s Harbour depends on intelligence and counter-intelligence, a field in which Aubrey′s friend Stephen Maturin excels. Through him we get a clear insight into the life and habits of the sea officers of Nelson′s time. There is plenty of action and excitement in this novel, but it is the atmosphere of a Malta crowded with senior officers waiting for news of what the French are up to, and wondering whether the war will end before their turn comes for prize money and fame, that is so freshly and vividly conveyed.

Following the extraordinary success of The Yellow Admiral, this latest Aubrey-Maturin novel brings alive the sights and sounds of North Africa as well as the great naval battles in the days immediately following Napoleon’s escape from Elba. Aubrey and Maturin are in the thick of the plots and counterplots to prevent his regaining power. Coloured by conspiracies in the Adriatic, in the Berber and Arab lands of the southern shores of the Mediterranean, by night actions, fierce pursuits, slave-trading and lion hunts, The Hundred Days is a masterpiece.

Jack Aubrey is a naval officer, a post-captain of experience and capacity. When The Letter of Marque opens he has been struck off the Navy List for a crime he has not committed. With Aubrey is his friend and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also an unofficial British intelligence agent. Maturin has bought for Aubrey his old ship the Surprise, so that the misery of ejection from the service can be palliated by the command of what Aubrey calls a ‘private man-of-war’ – a letter of marque, a privateer. Together they sail on a voyage which, if successful, might restore Aubrey to the rank, and the raison d’etre, whose loss he so much regrets.