Captain Jack Aubrey, hiding out in France from his creditors, is forced to run for his life when Napoleon goes to war again in 1803.

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 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.

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.

When last seen, Jack and Stephen had been shipwrecked on a desert island in the glittering South China Sea. The Nutmeg of Consolation opens as the castaways fashion a makeshift vessel from the wreckage, only to have it destroyed in a fiery attack by Malay pirates. Only the wondrous ingenuity of Stephen, along with the unexpected appearance of one of Jack's oldest allies, leads them to escape-and to dubious safety in a penal colony at New South Wales....

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...

For years, critics have celebrated best-selling author Patrick O'Brian's seafaring adventures for their magnificent blend of swashbuckling excitement and historical accuracy. With The Hundred Days, he transports you to the high seas of the Napoleonic era when the French demagogue is making a desperate attempt to control the European world. While Napoleon pursues the British across Europe, rumors fly about him forging a secret link with the forces...

Shoved into a temporary command in "that rotten old Worcester," Aubrey is off to the Mediterranean to join the Royal Navy's blockade of the French port of Toulon, where he will be dispatched by Admiral Harte (unfortunately the same Admiral Harte he cuckolded years ago) on a secret mission that promises to embroil Aubrey in political conflict. His friend Stephen's help notwithstanding, Aubrey faces some of the choppiest waters of his career.

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...