Blurb

Like Nelson's storm-beaten ships waiting for the French fleet to come out, Patrick O'Brian's readers have been watching for the sequel to Treason's Harbour. Patrick O'Brian takes his hero Jack Aubrey and his tetchy, sardonic friend Stephen Maturin on a voyage as fascinating as anything he has written. From the Mediterranean they set course across the South Atlantic to intercept, if possible, a powerful American frigate – it is still the War of 1812 – outward bound from Boston to play havoc with the British whaling trade. If they don't come up with her before she rounds the Horn they must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific as she may happen to lead them. Maturin as usual has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence.

It is a commission after Jack's own heart. And best of all he is given his much-loved Surprise, reprieved from the breaker's yard because of her exceptional sailing qualities, the prime requirement of a mission in which speed and manoeuvrability will have to count against the American's superior weight of guns. It means too that he can keep his hand-picked hard-trained ship's company though death and promotion have claimed some of his best officers and senior ratings.

The human tensions which their replacements provoke are the least that Captain Aubrey has to contend with. `That we may be preserved from the dangers of the sea and the violence of the enemy.' The priorities of the naval prayer are abundantly justified in this exciting, pell-mell succession of disasters – men overboard, castaways, encounters with savages, storms, typhoons, groundings, shipwrecks, to say nothing of murder and incipient mutiny. That the enemy is in fact faithfully dealt with no-one who has had the honour of Captain Aubrey's acquaintance can take leave to doubt.

In inventiveness of storytelling, in richness of characterisation, in truth to historical background, The Far Side of the World not only maintains but enhances the standards that have won this series the opinions quoted on the back of the jacket. As always Patrick O'Brian not only tells an entirely new story: he constructs, out of historically authentic materials, an entirely fresh setting. The Pacific and its islands, little changed since the days of Cook or Narborough, is brought before us with all the vividness and sense of delight that is the hallmark of the author.

`We have long been devotees of C. S. Forester and thought that nothing could fill the gap left by the creator of Hornblower. Then we discovered Patrick O'Brian. His series about the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars are beautifully assembled. In some ways they are more sensitive and scholarly than Forester's tales and every bit as exciting. Captain Aubrey and his surgeon, Stephen Maturin, compose one of those complex and fascinating pairs of characters which have inspired thrilling stories of all kinds since the Iliad.'
John Bayley, Iris Murdoch

Uniform edition: the first and second of Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin novels, Master and Commander and Post Captain, are reissued simultaneously with the publication of The Far Side of the World. H.M.S. Surprise and The Mauritius Command will be reissued with the publication of the next novel in the series, The Reverse of the Medal.
ISBN: 0 00 222 711 8
Cover Illustration by Arthur Barbosa
Collins
8 Grafton St. London W1

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