My name is Nikolai Tolstoy, and I am the stepson of Patrick O’Brian, who married my mother in 1945. I have been commissioned by the British publisher Century to write his biography. This is proving a much longer and more arduous task than I anticipated, since when I first received the commission I imagined that my book would constitute little more than a personal memoir of a man whom I knew intimately for nearly half a century. 

I had read and reviewed the biography by Dean King, and imagined that he had performed a thorough job in uncovering details of Patrick’s early life before he met my mother. It was my initial intention to refer readers to his book for that part of his life, of which I had no personal knowledge. However it was not long before I discovered on the one hand just how inaccurate is King's account, and on the other how much revealing information I had in my possession when for the first time I came to examine it thoroughly. This constitutes a vast collection of letters, journals, etc which he had sent or given me over the years. 

I certainly do not wish to be uncharitable to King, who was greatly disadvantaged by the fact that my stepfather, averse to having his biography written by a stranger, declined ever to speak to him. Similarly he never met my mother, and most of my stepfather's intimate friends accepted his request not to speak to King. I have to say, however, that it might have been wiser not to attempt a task which circumstances made it impossible to perform adequately. I imagine it will be appreciated that I feel strongly about the matter, having enjoyed such a close relationship with Patrick for so long. Equally, I had better opportunity to know than anyone else how difficult he could be on occasion, and certainly do not intend to gloss over his faults. However I believe that a proper appreciation of his childhood experiences and the effect they had on his nature will help people to understand the more eccentric aspects of his character. 

Since it will be some time before my book appears (the sheer bulk of information at my disposal appears a little daunting at present!), I feel it cannot be emphasised too strongly just how inaccurate is much, if not most, of what has been written about Patrick during the last few years. So far as Dean King’s biography is concerned, I could wish that he had indicated more clearly where he not infrequently indulges in unsubstantiated speculation. It is not my concern to refute his book. However, to provide but three random examples, his descriptions of Patrick’s reason for abandoning his first family, his meeting with my mother during the Blitz in London, and his reaction to his father’s death regrettably represent pure fantasy. 

At least Dean King is a genuine admirer of my stepfather’s work and produced the best work he could, considering the sparse extent of the material available to him. Though much of what he writes will be seen to be unfair to my stepfather’s memory, I am sure that his intentions were honourable. Indeed, when he came to see me at my home I found him a charming and intelligent person. This is more than can be said for the authors of some exceedingly ill-informed press articles rushed out after my stepfather's death. I was particularly sorry to discover on your excellent website a recent article by a journalist named Kevin Myers, entitled ‘The legacy of a lifetime’s naval gazing’. After my stepfather had received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin (my own university), he came to see something of Myers. Gratified by the attention, Myers wrote a succession of highly laudatory articles and reviews about the Aubrey-Maturin series. Unfortunately there occurred on one occasion a trifling brush between them, when Myers attempted to pry into my stepfather’s private affairs - presumably in a search for journalistic copy. This my stepfather understandably resented, and Myers in consequence decided that he had not been treated with the respect which was his due. 

This did not prevent his continuing to write in praise of my stepfather during the rest of his [POB's] lifetime, nor from accepting his lavish hospitality. When Myers reviewed Dean King's book, almost his only criticism was that he should have consulted Patrick O’Brian’s closest friends - above all, one Kevin Myers! However the moment my stepfather was dead, Myers began writing articles whose contents became ever more spiteful. That to which I have referred has most regrettably received wide circulation, and I feel obliged to point out that it represents little more than malevolent invention. 

The main thrust of Myers's attack is that the money which Patrick earned from his books has been unjustly withheld from the heirs of the late Lord Aldington, who won a libel action against me in 1989. Readers may well be baffled to follow the logic of this accusation, which indeed is only sustained by a series of falsehoods. 

1. ‘The ghastly truth [about Patrick’s first marriage, of which Myers knows nothing] was revealed, first in a [BBC] television documentary made initially with his consent (and one which Mary [my mother] would never have allowed him near) ...’ 

2. Clearly Myers cannot have watched the programme (‘Nothing Personal’, broadcast on 28/9/98), since it made no allusion whatever to Patrick’s first marriage. On what grounds Myers believes he knows what my mother would or would not have recommended only he can reveal. In fact Patrick had appeared in previous years, with my mother’s strong approval, in several lengthy French television cultural programmes. 

3. Myers’s sloppy approach to journalism is illustrated en passant by his statement that Patrick ‘died just three years ago’. In fact it was precisely two years before, as Myers had particular reason to recall, since he took advantage of the event to publish a succession of feature articles about my stepfather. 

4. ‘Nikolai was publishing his Victims of Yalta, a cause which was to bring him close to ruin after Lord Aldington sued him for libel’. 

My book "Victims of Yalta" was published in 1978, and had nothing whatever to do with my libel action against Lord Aldington, who issued his writ against me in 1987 in respect of an entirely different publication. In view of the colossal amount of worldwide press coverage generated successively by the book and the libel action, this suggests an amazing degree of ignorance of public affairs. 

5. After referring to the libel action, and the damages of £1,500,000 awarded against me, Myers continues: ‘During that same traumatic time, with his mother Mary lying in hospital, both legs shattered, his stepfather Patrick struck a secret blow for him by inserting a Colonel Aldington in The Surgeon's Mate. The fictional Aldington is a large and brutish man ...’ Here Myers surpasses even his own inventive standards of vilification. My mother's accident occurred in 1977, "The Surgeon's Mate" was published in 1980, and the libel damages award occurred at the end of 1989! It would further be interesting to learn how the inclusion of a Colonel Aldington in a bestselling novel might be held to constitute "a secret blow"! 

6. ‘To add financial insult to that fictive injury, Lord Aldington never received a penny of the damages he was awarded against Count Tolstoy’. 

As was widely reported in the national press a few months before Myers wrote his piece, I was in fact compelled to pay Aldington £95,000. This sum, as the newspapers also reported, was accepted by the Trustee in Bankruptcy and Lord Aldington's heirs as the full extent of my exigible estate. 

7. ‘The inheritor of the O'Brian estate is in large part his stepson, Nikolai Tolstoy ...’ 

In fact I have no claim on his estate, which was left in its entirety to my sister's and my six children. Since wills are publicly accessible documents in Great Britain, Myers would have encountered no difficulty in discovering the truth had it concerned him. 

1. ‘... the fortunes of the Tolstoy family are made, yet again. The Aldington heirs must be wondering about that bursting pot of O’Brian gold, one which even Croesus might covet. Is Aldington v Tolstoy about to enter the lists again?’ 

Since even under English law others cannot be held responsible for my debts, the reference to ‘the Tolstoy family’ is presumably an equivocation intended to suggest that much or all of my stepfather’s money is or will be at my disposal. That this was what he intended is confirmed by the rhetorical question whether the Aldington heirs may not be contemplating undertaking legal action to recover those assets. Myers similarly takes care to withhold the fundamental fact that no asset acquired since the expiry of my bankruptcy in 1993 could under any circumstances be claimed by Aldington or his heirs. Of course he had to suppress that, since had he revealed it the whole thrust of his article would have been falsified, and he would not have received his payment from the Sunday Telegraph. 

2. The rhetorical question ‘that bursting pot of O’Brian gold, one which even Croesus might covet. Is Aldington v Tolstoy about to enter the lists again?’ is unmistakably intended to imply (i) the royalties from the forthcoming film (‘that bursting pot of O’Brian gold’) will pass to me; (ii) Aldington’s heirs have a sufficiently justified legal claim on that income to make litigation a possibility. Both insinuations are patently false, as yet again Myers had good reason to know. 

So far as I am concerned, the most distasteful aspect of Myers's article is the sympathy and support he displays for Lord Aldington. As is now very widely known, Aldington was a major war criminal who as Chief of Staff of British occupying forces in Austria in 1945 bore key responsibility for sending some 70,000 Russian and Yugoslav prisoners of war and refugees (large numbers of whom were women, children, and babies) to be slaughtered or enslaved by Stalin and Tito. (Those who wish to learn more about the matter may consult my website: http://www.uvsc.edu/tolstoy). Myers is not quite alone, though very nearly so, in continuing to endorse Aldington's action, which was incidentally perpetrated in violation of superior orders. Not only this, but he is openly concerned that Aldington’s family should receive enormous financial reward as a consequence of his responsibility for mass murder. In marked contrast Myers has never (to the best of my knowledge) expressed sympathy for any of Aldington's thousands of helpless victims. That such a man should engage in a campaign of lies against my stepfather may consequently not appear altogether surprising. 

I hope readers of this website will not feel that I have been unduly harsh on a journalist whose prime concern, presumably, is to earn his keep. However I have in the past been in touch with Myers, who has my telephone number. That he could write at such length about my family's private affairs without troubling to check questions to which he knew I had the answers makes it hard to believe that his misrepresentations arose from mere carelessness or ignorance. 

Nikolai Tolstoy, 

Copyright Nikolai Tolstoy, 2002