Returning from the far side of the world, Aubrey meets his unknown son, and proceeds home to England, where he is embroiled in the most difficult challenge of his career, and all on dry land.

[1] By fall of 1990, W W Norton began publishing paperbacks of the prior novels, at the urging of Mr Lawrence, thus introducing the series to a new and larger audience.

Jack Aubrey and his crew make their way in a much knocked-about Surprise from the small island near the equator in the Pacific Ocean to the West Indies Squadron at Bridgetown with their American prisoners in a recaptured whaler.

Finally ashore in England, Aubrey hears a rumour from a stranger he meets in Dover that peace is coming soon, creating an opportunity to make money in the stock exchange.

Maturin finds that his wife Diana has gone to Sweden with Jagiello, and that The Grapes, an Inn in the liberties of the Savoy where he has kept rooms for years, has burnt down.

Maturin learns that his godfather Ramon d'Ullastret has died, and left him sole heir to an enormous fortune.

Maturin advertises a large reward (the gambling debts paid back to him by Wray) for word of Mr Palmer, which proves an error.

The public square is filled with seamen, who in a display of their support for a beloved and respected captain, push away anyone come to throw stones.

He again meets M. Duhamel, who returns the diamond, as was long ago agreed, and supplies Maturin with information on the double agents in London.

Duhamel knew the late Palmer only by that alias, and the pair in government is Ledward and Andrew Wray, who also mounted the stock exchange fraud.

This novel is the one read by Starling Lawrence of W W Norton, after urging by his cousin in 1986 and then visiting the London office of Vivien Green in 1989, the literary agent for Patrick O'Brian.

W W Norton began issuing paperbacks of the earlier novels, which is a distinctly positive review of The Reverse of the Medal.

The pillory scene is an opportunity for the seamen, including officers, to show their support of Aubrey, protecting him from Wray's never-ending wrath.

One of Lord Ellenborough's descendants (not named in the Author's Note) wrote again about the trial, asking a Mr Attlay (sic) of Lincoln's Inn to address the legal issues.

[3][4] The paperback reissue by W W Norton in the USA in 1992 marked a resurgence in interest in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian.

Beginning with The Nutmeg of Consolation in 1991, the novels were released at about the same time in the USA (by W W Norton) and the UK (by HarperCollins, the name of Collins after a merger).