Edited by A. E. Cunningham
Patrick O'Brian
Critical Essays and a Bibliography
A book to satisfy the many admirers of Patrick O'Brian's fiction who would like to know more about the world he has created in the Aubrey/Maturin novels.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels are acknowledged by critics and readers alike as classic works of fiction and attract an increasingly wide audience. Patrick O'Brian was also a translator of note and the author of several biographies and other works of nonfiction. His first books appeared over fifty years ago to wide and enduring critical acclaim.
This compilation of essays is an appreciation of Patrick O'Brian's writing life. Several authors have contributed essays enlightening various aspects of O'Brian's work and its sources in eighteenth-century naval life. Historian and author Richard Ollard discusses editing Patrick O'Brian; Brian Laverty writes about Aubrey's ship, the Surprise; Nicholas Rodger gives particulars on the sailing of square-rigged ships; other essays by Louis West, John Bayley, actor and director Charlton Heston, N. A. M. Rodger and the bibliography by A. E. Cunningham round out the book. Most interesting to many readers will be Patrick O'Brian's own contribution: an autobiographical essay, plus "Samphire" and "Simon", two of O'Brian's best-known short stories. Originally published in Great Britain under the title Patrick O'Brian: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography.
"[S]ure to be sought-after by the fast-growing legions of fans of O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series of novels... "—Publishers Weekly
"[O'Brian is] a literary figure of the utmost range and competence. The Critical Essays and Bibliography lists the output of a working life, while the assorted experts admiringly vouch for O'Brian's accuracy and scholarship in their various fields."—James Hamilton-Paterson, The New Republic
A. E. Cunningham is a professional librarian and currently Head of Publications at the British Library's National Bibliographic Service. His particular area of expertise is the bibliography of British Parliamentary and other official publications of the eighteenth-century.
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