Patrick O'Brian

Book 1 of the Aubrey/Maturin Series

Master and Commander

The beginning to the sweeping Aubrey/Maturin series and inspiration for the major new motion picture 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, shipšs 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.

Master and Commander is available in two editions: the regular edition featuring the classic cover art of Geoff Hunt, and a movie tie-in edition with a cover photo featuring Russell Crowe, star of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

"Re-creates with delightful subtlety, the flavor of life aboard a midget British man-of-war plying the western Mediterranean in the year 1800, a year of indecisive naval skirmishes with France and Spain. Even for a reader not especially interested in matters nautical, the author's easy command of the philosophical, political, sensual and social temper of the times flavors a rich entertainment."—Martin Levin, New York Times Book Review

"Some of you...have never read a Patrick O'Brian novel. I beseech you to start now. Start with Master and Commander, which should be available in paperback from your nearest bookseller. And if he—or she—does not have a copy, then beat the wretched fellow."—Kevin Myers, Irish Times

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In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian's many books include Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore. O'Brian also wrote acclaimed biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and translated many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Lacouture's biographies of Charles de Gaulle. He passed away in January 2000 at the age of 85.

Originally published in 1970
1990 / paperback reissue / ISBN 0-393-30705-0
2003 / paperback movie tie-in edition / 0-393-32517-2
1994 / hardcover reissue / ISBN 0-393-03701-0
6" x 8" / 412 pages / Fiction