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Patrick O'Brian
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Desolation Island (Aubrey/Maturin) Paperback – August 17, 1991

by Patrick O'Brian (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 175 ratings
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"The relationship [between Aubrey and Maturin]...is about the best thing afloat....For Conradian power of description and sheer excitement there is nothing in naval fiction to beat the stern chase as the outgunned Leopard staggers through mountain waves in icy latitudes to escape the Dutch seventy-four." ―Stephen Vaughan, Observer

Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy―and a treacherous disease that decimates the crew. With a Dutch man-of-war to windward, the undermanned, outgunned Leopard sails for her life into the freezing waters of the Antarctic, where, in mountain seas, the Dutchman closes.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    325 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    August 17, 1991
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    039330812X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393308129
  8. See all details
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From the Publisher

Desolation Island - Patrick O'Brian - Aubrey Maturin Series

Desolation Island - Patrick O'Brian - Aubrey Maturin Series

Desolation Island - Patrick O'Brian - Aubrey Maturin Series

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Captain Bligh (yes, the guy from the Bounty) needs to be rescued, and the Royal Navy has the perfect man for the job: Captain Jack Aubrey. With his friend and cloak-and-dagger expert Stephen Maturin in tow, Aubrey sets off for Australia. Several factors, including an attractive spy and a small-scale epidemic, conspire to change his plans, and before long his frigate is being pursued into Antarctic waters by a Dutch man-of-war. Five installments into the series, the Aubrey-Maturin story remains (to quote The Observer) "the best thing afloat since Horatio Hornblower."

Review

"I haven’t read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O’Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn’t stop."
― E. O. Wilson, Boston Globe

"Good history, fascinating erudition, espionage, romance, fever in the hold, a wreck in lost latitudes, and an action at sea that for sheer descriptive power can match anything in sea fiction."
― Christopher Wordsworth, The Guardian

"I have been enthralled since reading Master and Commander. Now, having just finished Desolation Island, I find myself curiously anxious to slow down. True, nine volumes await me, but what I have read is so rich and splendid that I need to ponder and digest."
― Robert Massie

"The best historical novels ever written... On every page Mr. O’Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don’t, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives."
― Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review

"It has been something of a shock to find myself―an inveterate reader of girl books―obsessed with Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic-era historical novels... What keeps me hooked are the evolving relationships between Jack and Stephen and the women they love."
― Tamar Lewin, New York Times

"I devoured Patrick O’Brian’s 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog."
― Christopher Hitchens, Slate

"I fell in love with his writing straightaway, at first with Master and Commander. It wasn’t primarily the Nelson and Napoleonic period, more the human relationships. …And of course having characters isolated in the middle of the goddamn sea gives more scope. …It’s about friendship, camaraderie. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me."
― Keith Richards

"[O’Brian’s] Aubrey-Maturin series, 20 novels of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, is a masterpiece. It will outlive most of today’s putative literary gems as Sherlock Holmes has outlived Bulwer-Lytton, as Mark Twain has outlived Charles Reade."
― David Mamet, New York Times

"The Aubrey-Maturin series… far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart."
― Ken Ringle, Washington Post

"O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin volumes actually constitute a single 6,443-page novel, one that should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century."
― George Will

"Gripping and vivid… a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit."
― A. S. Byatt

"There is not a writer alive whose work I value over his."
― Stephen Becker, Chicago Sun-Times

"Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars."
― James Hamilton-Paterson, New Republic

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (August 17, 1991)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 325 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 039330812X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393308129
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 175 ratings

About the author

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Patrick O'Brian

Patrick O'Brian

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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.

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
175 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jay Inhof
5.0 out of 5 stars On time. Good shape. Great read!
Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2020
Verified Purchase
Everyone should read the Patrick O'Brian "Aubrey/Maturin" series. Great writing - whether you're a seafarer or a landlubber! Great way to learn a bit of history and dream of having a "Lucky" Jack Aubrey life! Or, if the life of a 19th Century Royal Navy captain ain't your thing - how about a Dr. Maturin life? That might do. Read one or read them all. Great reads for the pandemic!!
3 people found this helpful
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D. A. Kersting
5.0 out of 5 stars and seeing way more than I had before - the sheer vastness of his knowledge - the ever-ready wit - animal characterizations - de
Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2015
Verified Purchase
It's impossible to say enough good-enough things about the Aubrey-Maturin series. I'm reading through it again, for the second time, and seeing way more than I had before - the sheer vastness of his knowledge - the ever-ready wit - animal characterizations - descriptions of music - possibly the greatest duo in literature. The understated horrors of the occasional absolutely real naval battles are just one little aspect of a general perfection. I fully appreciate Austen, Dickens, Shaw, Wilde, and all the others, and O'Brian is right up in that rank.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars the narrative is fantastic and the world is highly detailed
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2016
Verified Purchase
If you've never read an Aubrey/Maturin novel, don't start here. Read Master and Commander first and so on... this is the fifth book. As its setting is a very detailed recreation of turn of the 19th century England and British Navy, the story has a fairly adult leaning. Which isn't to say that its an adult book, but that it doesn't shy away from the realities of the era. However, the narrative is fantastic and the world is highly detailed. It feels like I'm visiting the 1800's and not just reading a book set in that era.
One person found this helpful
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David L. Carrier
5.0 out of 5 stars O'Brian is a Genius!!
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2022
Verified Purchase
Favorite author of all time. Another great one. Delightful!
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D. Carr
5.0 out of 5 stars Master and Commander, take 4.
Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2016
Verified Purchase
This is book 4 of the 16 book series (might be 17). My library didn't have the complete set, so I bought it, read it, and donated it. It was cheaper to buy this book and have it shipped to Cleveland OH from California than to buy the Kindle version, weird. But I like real books over Kindle anyway. Love the language and sailing jargon. Descriptions of boat handling impressive. Nice job of building suspense. Well developed characters, after 17 books I'd hope so, lol.
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Scot overton
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Treasure
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2021
Verified Purchase
As always, Patrick O'Brien strikes a wonderful balance of internal reflection of the human condition with great action and description of wonderful and faraway places. I love this series
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peinstein
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best so far...
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2006
Verified Purchase
One reviewer described The Mauritius Command as a logical stopping point, and I did find that installment a little bit drier and tougher to follow than, say, Post Captain. But I plunged ahead anyway, and Desolation Island turned out to be one of the most exciting page-turners in the series. The pursuit through Southern latitudes - impossible to put down. Desolation Island itself - finely drawn. The drama and plot surged right through the last page. An outstanding volume in the series.

Sixty pages in, Fortune of War is a little slower, but the book begins with a longish land-bound section. With O'Brian, once they put to sea, things really start moving.
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J. Forrister
5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2020
Verified Purchase
This series is great. Don't know why I waited so long to start reading it.
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