H. M. S. Surprise - Paperback

by Patrick O'Brian (Author)

In H.M.S. Surprise, British naval officer Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin face near-death and tumultuous romance in the distant waters ploughed by the ships of the East India Company. Tasked with ferrying a British ambassador to the Sultan of Kampong, they find themselves on a prolonged voyage aboard a Royal Navy frigate en route to the Malay Peninsula. In this new sphere, Aubrey is on the defensive, pitting wits and seamanship against an enemy who enjoys overwhelming local superiority. But somewhere in the Indian Ocean lies the prize that could secure him a marriage to his beloved Sophie and make him rich beyond his wildest dreams: the ships sent by Napoleon to attack the China Fleet.

Back Jacket

Praise for the Aubrey/Maturin Series and Patrick O'Brian

"The best historical novels ever written."
--Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review

"I love these books.... [They offer] the same sense of lived experience as Hilary Mantel.... They will sweep you away and return you delighted, increased and stunned. If the phrase 'Napoleonic war fiction' fills you with anticipation, then you don't need me to convince you to read [Patrick] O'Brian. But for the rest of you.... [P]lease, just trust me."
--Nicola Griffith, NPR

"A few books work their way... onto [bestseller] lists by genuine, lasting excellence--witness The Lord of the Rings, or Patrick O'Brian's sea stories."
--Ursula K. Le Guin

"Like John LeCarré, [O'Brian] has erased the boundary separating a debased genre from 'serious' fiction. O'Brian is a novelist, pure and simple, one of the best we have."
--Mark Horowitz, Los Angeles Times Book Review

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

"O'Brian's eloquent admirers include not merely distinguished critics and reviewers but... thousands upon thousands of fervent readers who thank the gods for him.... [H]is work accomplishes nobly the three grand purposes of art: to entertain, to edify, and to awe."
--Stephen Becker, Paris Review

"For escapist reading, I especially like the sea novels of Patrick O'Brian."
--Bill Bryson

"O'Brian's narrative... provides endlessly varying shocks and surprises--comic, grim, farcical and tragic. An essential of the truly gripping book for the narrative addict is the creation of a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit, and O'Brian does this with prodigal specificity and generosity."
--A. S. Byatt

"I prefer the Aubrey-Maturin series to all others.... Every book is packed to absolute straining with erudition, wit, history, and thunderous action."
--Joe Hill

"All of the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian [is on my shelves]."
--Mindy Kaling, New York Times