These sea novels are set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centre on the friendship of the English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin.
The 20-novel series, the first of which is Master and Commander, is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and evocative language.
The book Hussein, An Entertainment published by Oxford University Press in 1938, and the short-story collection Beasts Royal brought considerable critical praise, especially considering his youth.
", included in the book Patrick O'Brian: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography (1994)[8] that: "Some time after the blitz had died away I joined one of those intelligence organisations that flourished during the War, perpetually changing their initials and competing with one another.
As background to his later sea-going novels, O'Brian did claim to have had limited experience on a square-rigged sailing vessel, as described within his previously-quoted 1994 essay: The disease that racked my bosom every now and then did not much affect my strength and when it left me in peace (for there were long remissions) sea-air and sea-voyages were recommended.
[8]However, in 1995, venture capitalist Thomas Perkins offered O'Brian a two-week cruise aboard his then sailing yacht, a 154-foot (47 m) ketch.
In an article about the experience written after O'Brian's death, Perkins commented that "... his knowledge of the practical aspects of sailing seemed, amazingly, almost nil" and "... he seemed to have no feeling for the wind and the course, and frequently I had to intervene to prevent a full standing gybe.
"[10] Between 1946 and 1949 the O'Brians lived in Cwm Croesor, a remote valley in north Wales, where they initially rented a cottage from Clough Williams-Ellis.
Ollard, who edited the early Aubrey–Maturin novels, urged O'Brian to tone down the most obscure allusions, though the books remain crammed with Latin tags, antiquated medical terminology and an endless stream of marvellous-sounding but impenetrable naval jargon.
"[13] In 1998, a BBC documentary and an exposé in The Daily Telegraph[14] made public the facts of his ancestry, original name and first marriage, provoking considerable critical media comment.
In his biography of O'Brian,[11] Nikolai Tolstoy claims to give a more accurate and balanced account of his late stepfather's character, actions and motives, particularly in respect of his first marriage and family.
"[15] He does not find the arguments altogether persuasive, and with access to documents that Dean King never saw, Tolstoy "gives a portrait of a man who is cold, bullying, isolated, snobbish and super-sensitive.
In Clarissa Oakes (published as The Truelove in the US), Stephen warns would-be interviewers that "question and answer is not a civilised form of conversation."
O'Brian deflects direct inquiries about his private life, and when asked why he moved to the south of France after World War II, he stops and fixes his interrogator with a cold stare.
"[13] At his death, many obituaries were published evaluating his work, particularly in the Aubrey–Maturin series, and the revelations of his biography prior to his marriage to Mary Wicksteed Tolstoy.
[22] His American publisher, W. W. Norton, wrote an appreciation, mentioning their story with O'Brian, how pleased they were the three times he came to the US, in 1993, 1995 and in November 1999 only weeks before his death, and noting sales in the US alone of over three million copies.
It was notable for being the first book of contemporary fiction ever published by the Oxford University Press,[3]: 75 to whose annuals for boys he had been a regular contributor for some years.
[3]: 151–151 The countryside and people around his village in Wales provided inspiration for many of his short stories of the period, and also his novel Testimonies (1952), which is set in a thinly disguised Cwm Croesor, and which was well received by Delmore Schwartz in Partisan Review in 1952.
[26] In the 1950s, O'Brian wrote three books aimed at a younger age group, The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore.
In The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore, based on events of George Anson's voyage around the world from 1740 to 1744, they can be clearly seen in the characters of Jack Byron and Tobias Barrow in the latter novel.
O'Brian wrote the first of the Aubrey–Maturin series in 1969 at the suggestion of American publisher J B Lippincott, following the 1966 death of C. S. Forester, a writer of popular nautical novels.
In the early 1990s, the series was successfully relaunched into the American market by the interest of Starling Lawrence of W. W. Norton publishers,[13][28] attracting critical acclaim and dramatically increasing O'Brian's sales and public profile in the UK and America.
[3]: Ch.22–23 Paul D. Colford notes that when O'Brian "visited the United States a few weeks ago [in December 1993], fans waiting to meet, lunch and have tea with him included Walter Cronkite, Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho) and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who invited O'Brian to attend a session of the high court.
[30] Thus O'Brian's greatest success in writing, gaining him fame, a following, and invitations to events and interviews came late in his life, when he was well into his seventies and accustomed to his privacy.
The books are set in the early 19th century and describe the lives and careers of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his friend, naval physician and naturalist Dr Stephen Maturin, a man of Irish and Catalan parents.
The weekend featured lectures by some of Britain's leading naval historians on "how the novels closely reflect the insights of modern scholarship".
[35] O'Brian claimed that he wrote "like a Christian, with ink and quill"; Mary was his first reader and typed his manuscripts "pretty" for the publisher.