21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (Vol. Book 21) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

Patrick O'Brian

Sep 2010 · Aubrey/Maturin Novels Book 21 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this ebook

To the delight of millions of Patrick O'Brian fans, here is the final, partial installment of the Aubrey-Maturin series, for the first time in paperback.

Blue at the Mizzen (novel #20) ended with Jack Aubrey getting the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. The next novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of the author's death, would have been the chronicle of that mission, and much else besides. The three chapters left on O'Brian's desk are presented here both in printed version-including his corrections to the typescript-and a facsimile of his manuscript, which goes several pages beyond the end of the typescript to include a duel between Stephen Maturin and an impertinent officer who is courting his fiancée.

Of course we would rather have had the whole story; instead we have this proof that O'Brian's powers of observation, his humor, and his understanding of his characters were undiminished to the end.

Includes a Facsimile of the Manuscript.

Ratings and reviews

The beginning of the Aubrey/Maturin series threw the readers into the middle of the main character's lives. Lives with a history and influences. This final book in the series ends the same way. Life goes on for the characters, a future hinted at but not completely defined. In a previous book in the series, a joke is made by Dr. Maturin that some of the best literary works do not, in fact, possess an ending. Perhaps a bit prophetic, but true nonetheless. An ending as eternal as the story and characters themselves.

About the author

One of our greatest contemporary novelists, Patrick O’Brian is the author of the twenty volumes of the best-selling Aubrey/Maturin series, as well as many other books, including Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore, and biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso.