Harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian

For armchair seafarers who who follow every adventure of Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin but have no idea where on earth Christmas Island is, let alone how far it is from Annamooka, here is the ideal (if unauthorized) Baedeker. Book by book, journey by journey, knot by knot, book packager King provides a geographical guide to Aubrey and Maturin's adventures. (Distinguishing between real locales and those invented by O'Brian was the worst part of the job, notes King.) Cartographer William Clipson provides maps. And maritime historian Hattendorft gives background on the patterns of winds and ocean currents--information so necessary to navigators--and informs us that, in the early 1790s, it would have taken 124 dys to sail from holland to Cape Town. In fact, all that's missing here is a do-it-yourself model of Aubrey's ship, HMS Surprise. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This atlas tracks the routes taken and summarizes the plots of all 17 of O'Brian's Napoleonic sea sagas. Featuring a redoubtable pair of British buddies, the series recounts their nautical adventures in the course of fighting the dastardly French or bumptious Americans. As Aubrey and Maturin direct their good ship Surprise around the globe at the admiralty's beck and call, the authors present original maps that pinpoint the novels' pursuits and battles, and they spice the graphics with contemporary drawings of significant ports and forts (like Gibraltar) that were printed in the Royal Navy's official yearbook of those times. As a novelty spin-off, these maps by fans for fans will be popular if an individual library records steady circulation of O'Brianiana. (If so, don't overlook a previous spin-off, O'Brian's Men-of-War , a description of ships in the series.) Gilbert Taylor