Here is the maiden voyage of O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series, which follows the unique friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent.

It is the dawn of the nineteenth century; Britain is at war with Napoleon's France. When Jack Aubrey, a young lieutenant in Nelson's navy, is promoted to captain, he inherits command of HMS Sophie, an old, slow brig unlikely to make his fortune.

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Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a command - until Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant, there to mount an expedition against the French-held islands of Mauritius and La Reunion. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains - Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity...

The South Seas are a paradise for battle-weary Captain Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. But their peace is disturbed when Stephen's fancy for a peculiar marine organism lands him overboard. Acting in his usual headstrong fashion, Jack dives in to the rescue, unfortunately failing to plan what will happen once they are both in the water watching the sails of the Surprise disappear in the mist.

Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin set sail aboard the Diane for the South China Sea, shepherding a diplomatic mission to prevent links between Bonaparte and the Malay princes. If their mission fails, English merchant shipping in the area will be threatened. At the barbaric court of Pulo Prabang, the stage is set for a duel of intelligence agents, pitting the savage cunning of Stephen Maturin against the French envoys-who are already entrenched...

When Jack Aubrey makes some bad investments which involve him with the London underworld, he must rely on Stephen Maturin, an intelligence officer on his ship, to get him out of trouble

A British whaler has been captured by an ambitious chief in the sandwich islands at French instigation, and Captain Aubrey, R. N., Is dispatched with the Surprise to restore order. But stowed away in the cable-tier is an escaped female convict. To the officers, Clarissa Harvill is an object of awkward courtliness and dangerous jealousies. Aubrey himself is won over and indeed strongly attracted to this woman who will not speak of her past. But only...

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

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The espionage activities of cunning ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin have kept him at odds with the most important French agent in the Mediterranean, Lesueur-a man with a long memory and a taste for revenge. When that revenge takes the shape of the delicate and distracting Mrs. Fielding, who also attracts the ever-wandering eye of Jack Aubrey, Stephen's sensibilities are severely tested.

With his swashbuckling adventures, best-selling novelist Patrick O'Brian transports you to the high seas of old where privateers lurk in the mist, and great ships fight to control the waterways. Blue at the Mizzen hoists the excitement to new heights as British frigate commander Jack Aubrey stakes everything on a desperate raid against the mighty Spanish fleet. Ever since Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, Captain Aubrey's prospects in the new peacetime...

Blue at the Mizzen (novel #20) ended with Jack Aubrey getting 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. The next novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of the author's death, would have been the chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. The three chapters left on O'Brian's desk are presented here both in printed version-including his corrections...