PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Patrick O'Brian, until his death in 2000, was one of our greatest contemporary novelists. He is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey--Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He is the author of many other books including Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime's contribution to literature. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He lived for many years in South West France and he died in Dublin in January 2000.
This is the first of the late author's series of Napoleonic-war sea stories about the adventures of Jack Aubrey RN. When it was first published in 1969, no less a sailor than the taciturn Francis Chichester said it was the best sea story that he had ever read, and this and the subsequent yarns have continued to gather praise from all quarters ever since. (Kirkus UK)
