The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey. Patrick O'Brian - Softcover

O'Brian, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007358431 ISBN 13: 9780007358434

Publisher: UK General Books, 2010

Synopsis

The adventure continues . . . At the time of his death, Patrick O''Brian had begun to write the twenty-first book in his famous and much-loved Aubrey–Maturin series. The chapters he left behind are presented here, both in printed version and a facsimile of his manuscript, which goes several pages beyond the end of the typescript and includes O’Brian’s own marginal notes.The story picks up from the end of Blue at the Mizzen when Jack Aubrey receives 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.‘This fragment is both delightful and tantalising, with hints of a plot that might have involved Jack and Stephen with St Helena or Napoleon himself.’Literary Review

About this title

About the Author

Patrick O'Brian, one of our greatest contemporary novelists, is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Pablo Picasso. His first novel, Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories were recently republished by HarperCollins. In 1995, he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime's contribution to literature. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by Trinity College, Dublin. He died in January 2000 at the age of 85.

From Publishers Weekly

For Aubrey/Maturin addicts, there could be no better gift: a new, albeit incomplete, story with freshly piquant details, wry humor and salty nautical action. Although the official word was that O'Brian had finished the series with 1999's Blue at the Mizzen, he was in fact working on a new installment at the time of his death in 2000. This short volume juxtaposes a facsimile of O'Brian's handwritten manuscript of the untitled novel with a printed version of the text, which corresponds to O'Brian's loosely edited, typed pages. As the tale opens, our heroes are off the coast of South America, trying to find a friendly place to put the Surprise in for victuals and water. Jack Aubrey has received the happy news that he has been given the rank of rear admiral of the Blue, and all is well for the time being. But the Catholic locals are surly at best to the mostly Protestant crew. To fix things, Stephen Maturin does some judicious buttering up and Aubrey reunites with Samuel Mputa, the region's Papal Nuncio and, incidentally, one of his "indiscretions" from his days as "a long-legged youth" serving on the South African station. The typescript of the third chapter ends mid-sentence, but the handwritten manuscript continues on to include a duel between Maturin and a romantic rival, leaving readers begging for more. Alas, this fragmentary but worthy addition to the series is truly the end of a literary era, leaving only readers' imaginations to fill in the rest of the story.
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Edition details

• Publisher: UK General Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007358431
• ISBN 13: 9780007358434
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192