Four volumes of history and biography for fans of the Aubrey-Maturin novels, with lore on the Royal Navy and much more.
What is a sandgrouse, and where does it live? What are the medical properties of lignum vitae, and how did Stephen Maturin use it to repair his viola? Who is Adm. Lord Keith, and why is his wife so friendly with Capt. Jack Aubrey? More than any other contemporary author, Patrick O'Brian knew the past. His twenty Aubrey-Maturin novels, beginning with Master and Commander (1969), are distinguished by deep characterization, heart-stopping naval combat, and an attention to detail that enriches and enlivens his stories. In the revised edition of A Sea of Words, Dean King and his collaborators dive into Jack Aubrey's world.

In the revised edition of Harbors and High Seas, King details not just where Aubrey and Maturin went, but how they got there. Packed with maps and illustrations from the greatest age of sail, it is an incomparable reference for devotees of O'Brian's novels and anyone who has dreamed of climbing aboard a warship, as well as a captivating portrait of life on the sea during a time when nothing stood between man and ocean but grit, daring, and a few creaking planks of wood.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the British navy was the mightiest instrument of war the world had ever known. The Royal Navy patrolled the seas from India to the Caribbean, connecting an empire with footholds in every corner of the earth. Such a massive navy required the service of more than 100,000 men-from officers to deckhands to surgeons. Their stories are collected in Every Man Will Do His Duty. The inspiration for the bestselling novels of Patrick O'Brian and C. S. Forester, these twenty-two memoirs and diaries, edited by Dean King, provide a true portrait of life aboard British warships during one of the most significant eras of world history.

Patrick O'Brian was well into his seventies when the world fell in love with his greatest creation: the maritime adventures of Royal Navy Capt. Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. But despite his fame, little detail was available about the life of the reclusive author, whose mysterious past King uncovers in this groundbreaking biography. King traces O'Brian's personal history from his beginnings as a London-born Protestant named Richard Patrick Russ to his tortured relationship with his first wife and child to his emergence from World War II with the entirely new identity under which he would publish twenty volumes in the Aubrey-Maturin series. What King unearths is a life no less thrilling than the seafaring world of O'Brian's imagination. Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed is a penetrating and insightful examination of one of the modern world's most acclaimed historical novelists.

Dean King is an award-winning and bestselling author of narrative nonfiction and other works on historical and maritime adventure, including A Sea of Words (1995), Harbors and High Seas (1996), and Every Man Will Do His Duty (1997), all companion works to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. A foremost expert on O'Brian, King also published a biography of the acclaimed author, entitled Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed (2000). Most recently, King has published the national bestseller Skeletons on the Zahara (2004), about twelve shipwrecked American sailors' hellish journey across the Sahara Desert, and Unbound (2010), about the women who embarked on Mao's Long March in 1934. King's writing has also appeared in Granta, Esquire, Garden & Gun, Men's Journal, Outside, and the New York Times.

- Cover - A Sea of Words - Title Page - A Note on the Third Edition - Contents - List of Illustrations - Preface to the Second Edition by Dean King - Foreword by Dean King - The Royal Navy During the War of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War by John B. Hattendorf - King, Cabinet, and Parliament - The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty - The Admiralty Office - The Navy Board - The Ordnance Board - The Size of the Navy - Ships and Tactics - The Royal Dockyards and Ropeyards - Sea Officers: Commissioned and Warrant - Daily Life on a Warship - An Overview of the War of the French Revolution - The War of the First Coalition, 1793-1798 - The War of the Second Coalition, 1799-1801 - The Peace of Amiens, 1802-1803 - An Overview of the Napoleonic War - The War of the Third Coalition, 1805 - The Fourth Coalition, 1806-1807, and the Naval War After Trafalgar - The Fifth Coalition, 1809 - The Peninsular War, 1807-1814 - The War of 1812, 1812-1815 - The War of the Sixth Coalition, 1812-1814 - The War of the Seventh Coalition, 1815 - Stephen Maturin and Naval Medicine in the Age of Sail by J. Worth Estes - Doctors and the Royal Navy - Serving at Sea - Serving on Board Hospital Ships or at Hospitals - The Disease Burden of the Royal Navy - The Medicine Chest - Trauma and Surgery - What Good Could Dr. Maturin's Medicine Do? - Maps, Types of Sailing Ships, Ship Diagrams, and a Warship's Boats - The Alphabetical Lexicon to the Aubrey-Maturin Novels, with Biographies of Historical Figures, Battle Accounts, and Foreign Words and Phrases - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z - Appendix: A Time Line of the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, and the Fight for Independence in Chile - Selected Bibliography - Acknowledgments - Patrick O'Brian - Title Page - Dedication - Epigraph - Contents - Introduction - 1. Author's Note to the Paperback Edition - 2. Prologue: London, July 1945 - Part I: Green - 1. A Top Hat, a Clean Collar, and Clean Boots, 1850-1900 - 2. Walden, 1914-1922 - 3. The Pen Mightier than the Pain, 1923-1930 - Part II: Red - 4. Beasts Royal, 1930-1934 - 5. Catching Lightning in a Jar, 1934-1939 - 6. Blood, Sweat, Toil, and Tears, 1940-1943 - 7. An Irishman Is Born, 1943-1946 - Part III: Slate - 8. The Last Approach to the Mansion of Pluto, 1946-1947 - 9. Moelwyn Bank, 1948-1949 - Part IV: Azure - 10. The Last Stronghold of Poets and Painters, 1949-1953 - 11. The Catalans, 1953-1955 - 12. Voyaging with Commodore Anson, 1955-1959 - 13. Temple and Beauvoir, 1960-1966 - 14. Master and Commander, 1967-1969 - 15. An Epic Is Launched, 1970-1973 - 16. Becoming Picasso, 1973-1976 - Part V: Deep Blue - 17. At Sea Again, 1976-1978 - 18. Writing with Stunsails Aloft and Alow, 1978-1984 - 19. Singing of Sir Joseph, 1985-1986 - 20. Sailing in the Trade Winds, 1987-1990 - Part VI: Gold - 21. The Best Writer You Never Heard Of? 1990-1992 - 22. The Wages of Fame, 1993-1994 - 23. The Commodore's Second Triumphal Tour, 1995-1996 - 24. A Night of Honor, October 11, 1996 - Epilogue - Selected Bibliography - Acknowledgments - Index - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - Y - Z - Harbors and High Seas - Title Page - Dedication - Contents - List of Illustrations - A Note on the Third Edition - Preface to the Second Edition - Foreword by Dean King - Introduction - Not a Moment to Lose by John B. Hattendorf - MAP: Neat Diagram of the Winds: January to June - MAP: Neat Diagram of the Winds: July to December - MAP: Colonies and Trade Routes in 1814 - Maps of England, Ireland, and Europe - MAP: England and Wales in 1812 - MAP: Southern England - MAP: Ireland in 1812 - MAP: London in 1812 - MAP: Whitehall in 1812 - MAP: Europe in 1812 - Map Key - Chapter 1.