Patrick O'Brian

Book 12 of the Aubrey/Maturin series

The Letter of Marque

"Fine stuff...[The Letter of Marque] leaves the devotee of naval fiction eager for sequels."—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

Captain Jack Aubrey, a brilliant and experienced officer, has been struck off the list of post-captain s for a crime he did not commit. His old friend Stephen Maturin, usually cast as a ship's surgeon to mask his discreet activities on behalf of British Intelligence, has bought for Aubrey his former ship the Surprise to command as a privateer, more politely termed a letter of marque. Together they sail on a desperate mission against the French, which, if successful, may redeem Aubrey from the private hell of his disgrace.

"[Patrick O'Brian has] the power of bringing near to the reader...savagery and tenderness, beauty and mystery and boldness and dignity."—Eudora Welty

"The Letter of Marque is both serious and light-hearted, true and sentimental, as comic opera can be."—Peter Campbell, London Review of Books

In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian's many books include Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore. O'Brian also wrote acclaimed biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and translated many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Lacouture's biographies of Charles de Gaulle. He passed away in January 2000 at the age of 85.

Originally published in 1988
1992 / paperback / ISBN 0-393-30905-3
1990 / hardcover / ISBN 0-393-02874-7
6" x 8" / 284 pages / Fiction