Title: The Mauritius Command
First published: November 1994
Description: Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning, with Master and Commander, these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the fourth book in the series. Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half-pay without a command -- until his friend, and occasional intelligence agent, Stephen Maturin, arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope, under a Commodore's pennant. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains -- Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity can push his crews to the verge of mutiny. Based on the actual campaign of 1810 in the Indian Ocean, O'Brian's attention to detail of eighteenth-century life ashore and at sea is meticulous. This tale is as beautifully written and as gripping as any in the series; it also stands on its own as a superlative work of fiction.
Subjects: Jack Aubrey (Fictitious character), Stephen Maturin (Fictitious character), Naval History, Fiction, Fiction in English, Ship captains, Ship physicians, Large type books, Fiction, historical, Fiction, action & adventure, Sea stories, Aubrey, jack (fictitious character), fiction, Maturin, stephen (fictitious character), fiction, Great britain, fiction, Fiction, historical, general, Blind, books and reading, English literature, Seafaring life, History, Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815, Great Britain. Royal Navy
Places: Great Britain, Mauritius
People: Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin
Time periods: Napoleonic Wars, 19th century