Product 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 fourteenth book in the series. Patrick O'Brian is regarded by many as the greatest living historical novelist writing in English. In The Nutmeg of Consolation, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin begin stranded on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, attacked by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a stay in Batavia and a change of ship, they are caught up in a night chase in the fiercely tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales. It is one of O'Brian's most accomplished and gripping books.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63482 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 338 pages

From Amazon.com
Shipwrecked! When Captain Aubrey and his crew go aground on a remote island, they labor to construct a seaworthy schooner from the wreckage (taking breaks, of course, to play cricket.) Their subsequent adventures lead them to the dreaded penal colony at Botany Bay, and then, as always, back to sea.

From Publishers Weekly
Readers will welcome the reappearance here of elegant Stephen Maturin, one hero of O'Brian's excellent 19th-century seafarer series. Maturin is a ship's doctor, naturalist, spy, musician, ex-opium eater and, we're reminded here, terrific swordsman. His "brother" is Capt. Jack Aubrey, RN, MP, popular hero for his success against Napoleon, less introspective but as subtly drawn as Maturin and as avid a musician. Last seen in The Thirteen-Gun Salute the two were shipwrecked on a barren isle in the South China Sea. After a bitter fight with Dyaks and Malays they reach Batavia, where Governor Raffles gives Aubrey the eponymic Dutch sloop ("a tight, sweet, newly-coppered, broad-buttocked litle ship, a solace to any man's heart") to continue his circumnavigation of the globe. As usual the chief joys are in the details of the food, drink and clothes of the era, with those of the rain forests, kangaroos and platypuses added here. On the other hand, early Sydney's squalor is matched by its brutality.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The latest of O'Brian's many novels of the sea, this is an intriguing story about an early 19th-century British ship as it voyages through the South China Sea. On their way back from concluding a treaty with a local potentate, Captain Jack Aubrey and his crew go through a series of adventures, including shipwreck and a battle with a French frigate. They end up amidst the cruelty of Botany Bay, the penal colony in New South Wales. The crew are, on the whole, a dignified bunch, and some of the characters are very well drawn, including Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the ship's Irish doctor and naturalist. Some of the best parts of the book are the descriptions of the flora and fauna of the area, and O'Brian certainly knows his stuff about 19th-century seamanship (although landlubber readers may find themselves confused by some of the technical terminology). Recommended for public libraries.
- Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.