For Patrick O'Brian fans:

A review of POB's entire life's work!

A recent retrospective review by Robert Messenger reminds us of the delight in reading Patrick O'Brian, but the review also reminds us of the naval, historic, and cultural information one gains from reading his novels.

First, author Messenger states, "The Aubrey/Maturin chronicles are really a single large book, in twenty-one volumes, all about love and war and home and hearth and hunting."

As I independently realized, the author observes, "O'Brian's success has had a good effect on publishers. His single most important source was the forty-odd volume Naval Chronicle, published between 1799 and 1819 by the printer Joyce Gold. This compendium of action reports, biographies, technical description of naval innovations, poetry, and anecdote is the rough thread from which O'Brian spun his gold. A five-volume consolidated edition, edited by Nicholas Tracy, was published in America in 1998. It is impossible to imagine such a thing on my shelves without the O'Brian phenomenon. Dozens of books about Nelson and his navy are published, not by academic or military presses but by the major U.S. trade publishers each season. From where I sit I can see new books on the Royal Navy by N. A. M. Rodger (Norton), Peter Padfield (Overlook), Arthur Herman (HarperCollins), Jeremy Black (Yale), Michael Palmer (Harvard), Tom Pocock (Norton, again), volume one of another giant life of Nelson (Holt), and a Penguin reprint of the very first, by Robert Southey. There are also innumerable companions to O'Brian's creations, an atlas, a cookbook, and even an invaluable lexicon, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales (Holt)."

And, of course, like most of us fans, it's hard to read POB without thinking of the man, himself. Messenger comments, "I doubt that Patrick O'Brian was a happy man. He seems to have escaped from bitterness at his own life to the world of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. He found what he needed there."  Well worth your reading.

Patrick O'Brian's naval mastery
by Robert Messenger
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/23/may05/messenger.htm#top

----John Berg

 

 Patrick O'Brian Omnibus Collection; The by Patrick O'Brian, --All twenty-one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels collected in five volumes in a slip case. Yes, there will be multiple books between each of the five covers. A perfect gift for the POB and available in October 2004. Advanced orders accepted now. The Complete 20 Aubrey/Maturin Novels in a handsomely bound omnibus edition of Patrick O'Brian's seafaring classics, including three chapters of the unfinished twenty-first novel. These five volumes, beautifully produced and boxed, contain over 7,000 pages of what has often been described as a single, continuous narrative. They are a perfect tribute to such a literary achievement, and a perfect gift for the serious O'Brian enthusiast. The recent release of the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World has focused even more attention on the publishing phenomenon of the late Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels about the Royal Navy in the age of Nelson. Now, four years after O'Brian's death, his estate has agreed to release the chapters of the novel he was working on when he died. It is both fitting and moving that in these pages we are given a glimpse of Jack Aubrey raising his admiral's flag at last. October 2004, 5-volume hardcover boxed set, ISBN 0-393-06011-X , 4 7/8" x 8 7/8", 1396 pages each volume.. H, List Price $175.00, Your Price, $140.00, Book Number B01281.

Now that I have the books in hand I can answer many questions I couldn't earlier.  6528 is the page number of the last page.  The five books have handsome, quality cover with a dustcover and fit snugly in their slip case.  Each book has a bookmark ribbon bound into the book's spine.  The spine of the dust cover lists the four novels it that book.  Each has four titles but the fifth has the 21st as well.  The bottom of the spine shows the number of the volume in roman numerals. The spines of the five books, inserted in the correct order, offers a view of the Geoff Hunt cover image, The Commodore.

I worried about the ease of reading the Omnibus but the quality of the paper and the books pleases the hand and the size (5.3x8.3 inches) is handy, much like the Modern Library books.  The type is similar if not identical to the standard edition.  Others have commended the quality of the binding which permits the books to remain open to your page.  A sewn-in bookmark helps keep your place.

In short, the Omnibus is quite handy and readable.

A comment on book 21: the stand-alone 21 has print on one side and facsimile of the manuscript on the other followed by several pages of facsimile only. The Omnibus 21 has the print version without facsimile followed by the several unaccompanied facsimile pages. Click to see more.

21,

The Unfinished 21st book of the Aubrey-Maturin Series.

 

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