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"Few, very few books have made my heart thud with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed it." —Helen Lucy Burke, Irish Press
In H.M.S. Surprise, British naval officer Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin face near-death and tumultuous romance in the distant waters ploughed by the ships of the East India Company. Tasked with ferrying a British ambassador to the Sultan of Kampong, they find themselves on a prolonged
...The classic first novel of the epic Aubrey/Maturin series, widely considered "the best historical novels ever written" (Richard Snow, New York Times).
Ardent, gregarious British naval officer Jack Aubrey is elated to be given his first appointment as commander: the fourteen-gun ship HMS Sophie. Meanwhile—after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel—Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician,
..."The relationship [between Aubrey and Maturin]...is about the best thing afloat....For Conradian power of description and sheer excitement there is nothing in naval fiction to beat the stern chase as the outgunned Leopard staggers through mountain waves in icy latitudes to escape the Dutch seventy-four." —Stephen Vaughan, Observer
Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend
...6) Post captain
This is the seventeenth novel in the bestselling Aubrey-Maturin series of naval tales, which the New York Times Book Review has described as "the best historical novels ever written."
Having survived a long, desperate adventure in the Great South Sea, Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin return to England to very different circumstances. For Jack it is a happy homecoming, at least initially, but for Stephen it's disastrous. His little
...This sixteenth volume in the acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series, a brilliantly detailed narrative, became Patrick O'Brian's first bestseller in the United States.
At the outset of this adventure filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin pursue a heavy American privateer through the Great South Sea. Their ship, the Surprise, is now also a privateer, the better to escape diplomatic complications from Maturin's mission,
...Herman Wouk's boldly dramatic, brilliantly entertaining novel of life—and mutiny—on a Navy warship in the Pacific theater was immediately embraced, upon its original publication in 1951,...
In the early 1800s, the British Navy stands as the only bulwark against the militant fanaticism of Napoleonic France. Captain Jack Aubrey, a brilliant and experienced officer, has been struck off the list of post-captains for a crime he has not committed. His old friend Stephen Maturin, usually acting as the ship's surgeon to cover his activities on behalf of British intelligence, has bought for Aubrey his old ship, the Surprise, to command as
...Long before penning Moby-Dick, which many regard as the quintessential American novel, author Herman Melville was captivated by life on the open sea. White Jacket adopts a different perspective, focusing on the brutal treatment that many sailors received at the hands of their superiors. In particular, it has been noted that this novel proved to be instrumental in banning the practice of flogging in several branches of the U.S. military.
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