Digital List Price:	$15.95
Kindle Price:	$9.99 Save $5.96 (37%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Promotions apply when you purchase

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Patrick O'Brian

+ Follow

More books from this author

The Mauritius Command (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) Kindle Edition

by Patrick O'Brian (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 3,355 ratings

Book 4 of 21: Aubrey/Maturin Novels

See all formats and editions

"Jack's assignment: to capture the Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius from the French. That campaign forms the narrative thread of this rollicking sea saga. But its substance is more beguiling still." —Elizabeth Peer, Newsweek

The year is 1810 and Great Britain is again at war with France. British naval officer Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a command, living in domestic bliss with his young family—until his friend Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore’s pennant and mount an expedition against the French-held islands of Mauritius and La Réunion. But the difficulties of carrying out these orders are compounded by two of Aubrey’s own captains: Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity pushes his crew to the verge of mutiny. Meanwhile, news from home that will change the course of Aubrey’s life struggles to reach him.

From the Publisher


	H. M. S. Surprise (Book 3)	Desolation Island (Book 5)	The Fortune of War (Book 6)	The Surgeon's Mate (Book 7)	The Ionian Mission (Book 8)

Customer Reviews	4,063	2,939	2,979	13	2,597
Price	$10.31	$10.99	$12.50	$14.85	$15.95
More Books in the Aubrey / Maturin Series	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.	Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts.	Captain Jack Aubrey arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the British Navy.	British naval officer Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin, with his great love, Diana Villiers, speed home to England with news of their latest victory over the Americans.	Jack is now a senior captain commanding a line-of-battle ship in the Royal Navy’s blockade of Toulon, and this is a longer, harder, colder war than the dashing frigate actions of his early days.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sounding every bit the proper English gentleman, narrator Tim Pigott-Smith gives a delightfully entertaining, yet appropriately restrained performance in this rollicking addition to the popular Aubrey/Maturin series. Blending historical fact with fiction, author Patrick O'Brian has crafted another captivating saga based on obscure events in maritime history. "The frigates never reached the Antilles. Nothing was heard of them until they hit Mauritius, where they upset the balance of powers in those waters entirely. The news of their presence reached England a very short while ago." In less competent hands, efforts of this nature might well sink under the weight of pedantic prose and mind-numbing minutiae, but O'Brian's impressive writing and the considerable vocal talents of Pigott-Smith help keep this adventure, and the long-lived series itself, riding high in the water. (Running time: 5 hours, 3 cassettes) --George Laney

From Publishers Weekly

This initiates the reissue (see H.M.S. Surprise above) of O'Brian's long-out-of-print novels, set in Napoleonic-era England, about the unlikely pair, Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin. Aubrey is a strapping blond man of action; Maturin, his ship's surgeon and occasional intelligence agent to the king, is diminutive and somber. Aubrey is without a ship, uncomfortably surrounded by wife, babies and mother-in-law, when Maturin comes to visit. The good doctor has engineered a new mission for his friend, and they set off to take two small islands off the coast of Madagascar, thereby making the Indian Ocean safe for English commerce. O'Brian is a graceful writer, and the book is full of wonderful period details, such as the use of a sail to create a wading pool for non-swimmers in Aubrey's crew. Unfortunately, with Aubrey as commodore, too much of the action is seen from afar, as when batteries are taken on one of the islands. The book's peculiar narrative structure builds repeatedly towards anticipated climaxes that never happen. However, aficionados of C. S. Forester and Alexander Kent will delight in the almost excessive period nautical jargon.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

''The best historical novels ever written.'' --New York Times Book Review

''Few, very few, books have made my heart thud with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed it . . . Patrick O'Brian's erudition is phenomenal, as is his capacity for creating another completely believable world. He convinces with his total accuracy even in tiny details.'' --Irish Press

''O'Brian is astonishingly good.'' --Times (London)

''They're funny, they're exciting, they're informative. There are legions of us who gladly ship out time and time again under Captain Aubrey.'' --New Yorker

''Patrick O'Brian presents the lost arcana of that hard-pressed, cruel, courageous world with an immediacy that makes its workings both comprehensible and fascinating. But in the end it is the serious exploration of human character that gives the books their greatest power: the fretful play of mood that can irrationally darken the edges of the brightest triumph and that can feed a trickle of merriment into the midst of terror and tragedy.'' --New York Times Book Review

''O'Brian's sheer brilliance as a writer constantly dazzles, and his power over the reader is unique. No writer alive can move one as O'Brian can; no one can make you laugh so loud with hilarity, whiten your knuckles with unbearable tension, or choke with emotion. He is the master.'' --Irish Times

''. . . full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein... Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.'' --James Hamilton-Paterson

''You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.'' --Irish Times

''Few, very few, books have made my heart thump with excitement. H.M.S. Surprise managed it. [O'Brian's] erudition is phenomenal, as is his capacity for creating another completely believable world. I might have given a better idea of this book if I had simply written 600 times the word 'superb'.'' --Irish Times

''As sinewy, and virile as its predecessors, this is a copper-bottomed investment for the numerous fans of Jack Aubrey . . . we sail breathlessly through perilous seas to the Far East. Vivid and authentic as is Mr O'Brian's mastery of period and life at sea, it is in his creation of characters that he excels.'' Daily Telegraph ''It has been said that this series is some of the finest historical fiction of our time . . . Aubrey and Maturin have been described as better than Holmes and Watson, the equal of Quixote and Panza . . . All this is true. And the marvel is, it hardly says enough.'' --Los Angeles Times

''Earphones Awards winner [audiobook narrator] Simon Vance juggles multiple characters, accents, and dramatic and comedic scenes with aplomb . . . Vance's warm, welcoming voice captures colorful characters, entertaining relationships . . . Readers in search of a handful of excellent companions with whom to spend many enjoyable hours will be hail and well met.'' --AudioFilemagazine audiobook review

Review

Praise for Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series:

“I devoured Patrick O’Brian’s 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog.” —Christopher Hitchens, Slate

“I fell in love with his writing straightaway, at first with Master and Commander. It wasn’t primarily the Nelson and Napoleonic period, more the human relationships. . . . And of course having characters isolated in the middle of the goddamn sea gives more scope. . . . It’s about friendship, camaraderie. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me.” —Keith Richards

“O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin volumes actually constitute a single 6,443-page novel, one that should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century.” —George Will, Washington Post

“Gripping and vivid . . . a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit.” —A. S. Byatt

“[O’Brian’s] Aubrey-Maturin series, 20 novels of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, is a masterpiece. It will outlive most of today’s putative literary gems as Sherlock Holmes has outlived Bulwer-Lytton, as Mark Twain has outlived Charles Reade.” —David Mamet, New York Times

“The best historical novels ever written. . . . On every page Mr. O’Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don’t, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives.” —Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review

“The Aubrey-Maturin series . . . far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart.” —Ken Ringle, Washington Post

“There is not a writer alive whose work I value over his.” —Stephen Becker, Chicago Sun-Times

“Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.” —James Hamilton-Paterson, New Republic

“It has been something of a shock to find myself—an inveterate reader of girl books—obsessed with Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic-era historical novels. . . . What keeps me hooked are the evolving relationships between Jack and Stephen and the women they love.” —Tamar Lewin, New York Times

From the Inside Flap

Pigott-Smith
3 Cassettes, Approx. 5 1/4 hours

The 4th installmentin Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series

Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a command--until Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant, there to mount an expedition against the French-held islands or Mauritius and LaReunion. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains--Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilletante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity pushes his crew to the verge of mutiny.

From the Back Cover

Pigott-Smith
3 Cassettes, Approx. 5 1/4 hours

The 4th installmentin Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series

Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a command--until Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant, there to mount an expedition against the French-held islands or Mauritius and LaReunion. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains--Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilletante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity pushes his crew to the verge of mutiny.

About the Author

PATRICK O'BRIAN (1914-2000) was born Richard Patrick Russ in England. During the Second World War, he and his wife were involved in British secret-service activities. After the war, he changed his name to Patrick O'Brian and began his career as a novelist, biographer, and translator. He is the author of the acclaimed 'Aubrey-Maturin' tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. 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.

From AudioFile

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B006C3QAOE
Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (May 17, 1991)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 17, 1991
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3471 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 321 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0393541614

Best Sellers Rank: #63,968 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #89 in Sea Adventures Fiction (Books)
- #195 in Sea Stories
- #196 in Historical British Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.6 3,355 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Patrick O'Brian

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian's many books include "Testimonies," "The Golden Ocean," and "The Unknown Shore". O'Brian also wrote acclaimed biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and translated many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Lacouture's biographies of Charles de Gaulle. He passed away in January 2000 at the age of 85.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

3,355 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Nord Christensen

O’Brian: Historian & Linguist.

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

He’s an exceptionally fine storyteller, and excels at both interior and exterior dialogue. His yarns are full of human characters you’ll (over the series) come to love and admire, warts and all. This series embodies the idea(l) that books are time machines.

But it’s all about the language for O’Brian. Whether nautical, medical, zoological, or gastronomic, you’ll be referencing texts (or websites) to better understand the myriad archaic words and phrases his characters employ. Context allows a rough parsing, but a finite grasp requires a deeper dive.

The same advisory applies to the concepts of sail-powered naval combat — O’Brian gives the reader a rudimentary primer, but a fuller comprehension (& appreciation) can be had with a modicum of research. (The Internet is, after all, at your fingertips!) His books entertain but will also make you think, and work a little, too. If you’ll find this is an annoyance or imposition, then these aren’t the books for you — only inquiring minds need apply.

Helpful

doc peterson

The complexities of command

Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2011

Verified Purchase

The 4th novel in O'Brian's series of Cpt. Aubrey and Dr. Mautrin has Aubrey made acting Commodore in command of a small flotilla seeking to disrupt the French presence off the coast of south Africa and make an amphibious landings on two small islands off Madagascar. Both charges challenge Aubrey's considerable nautical skill.

As Aubrey's responsibility grows, he soon finds so do the complications of command as he quickly learns a complaining crew is much easier to handle than managing the egos and navigating the political waters of senior command. The interaction between Aubrey and his peers, the infighting, manipulation and machinations between officers (those directly under his command as well as those above him) make for particularly riveting reading, every bit as interesting as the battles at sea.

I am continually impressed with O'Brian's ability to keep the stories fresh: as readers become better acquainted with Aubrey and Maturin, the plots become more complex and larger, and one's understanding of the characters becomes deeper. In _The Mauritius Command_, the ante is upped further by basing the story on true events in the Napoleonic wars. The series is every bit as good as fans would have you believe. Highly recommended.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Andrew Updegrove

A Wormhole View Into Another Time and Place

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

O’Brian is a remarkable guide into another time and place whose writerly talents are awesome to behold. His ability to capture a bygone era both puzzle and bemuse, as the reader has no idea whether the rich idioms he employs in his dialogue and descriptions are the product of meticulous research or are (oh so skillfully) made up in whole cloth.

I know enough of the Napoleonic era age of fighting sail to know that the nautical descriptions are impeccably accurate, so one wants to believe the dialogues are equally true. This reader wonders nonetheless, but having said that, in truth it hardly matters. As my high school a English teacher would say, “it works.”

Why only four stars then?

Only on a comparative basis basis with the author’s other works and evident aspirations. The central plot element of the book is poor, doomed, Captain Clonfort, a lieutenant contemporary of Jack Aubrey in his early years who Aubrey later eclipses. The initial incident which presumably sets up Clonfert’s inferiority complex is a bit muddy in presentation, leaving the reader wondering what the take away is supposed to be. Was Clonfert actually cowardly? It’s not clear. If he wasn’t, what’s the significance of that scene?

Also of note, O’Brian is apparently portraying an actual Indian Ocean campaign, superimposing Jack Aubrey’s persona on the exploits of a real captain(s). That’s quite interesting, but constraining. Perhaps the story line could have been more effective had it not been more constrained. Certainly O’Brian’s result would be more laudatory if his result had been transcendent rather than simply workmanlike.

In sum: a very worthwhile and readable book. But an author with so much talent sets himself a bar that a five star rating is comparatively much harder to attain.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

drpainless

A Delight to Read in any Format

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book is well written enough to re-read in a multiplicity of encounters, like all the others in this amazing series. This is my fourth time through the entire saga: first in hardback, second in paperback, third in compiled tomes, and now fourth in Kindle format: portable, available, approachable, a complexity of literary elegance that improves like fine wine with age. The quality of the writing draws the reader more deeply with each reading, and the artistry becomes more compelling. Take this phrase for example: "...the great lambert stars hanging there in a velvet sky...". More than a storyteller, it takes an artist to bring the sounds of the sea lapping at the wooden sides of a ship on a warm tropical night right into the readers senses. The vocabulary, the attention to detail, the penetration of insight into the human condition; all these draw the reader into a more engaging encounter with the author, yardarm to yardarm, with undaunted broadsides of give and take. I'd recognize this author's voice anywhere, and take pleasure being in the company of an old friend. O'Brian is certainly "a deep old file."

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

jason

great book

Reviewed in Canada on May 3, 2024

Verified Purchase

i like this author

Clemens Schoonderwoert

A Superb Mauritius Command!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 17, 2021

Verified Purchase

Read this book in 2008, and its the 4th wonderful outing in the "Aubrey/Maturin" series.

In this tale at the beginning Captain Jack Aubrey is on shore at half pay without a command, when Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant.

With a mighty expedition sailing towards the Indian Ocean, their action will need to be done against the French and their Islands, Mauritius and La Réunion.

But not carrying out his orders correctly are two Captains who are thwarting Aubrey's orders and those men are Lord Clonfert and Captain Corbett.

With two of his ships in turmoil, with a possible mutiny at hand on board these same ships, commodore Aubrey will need all his strength and determination to get those ships into line with all the others while performing their actions to the full satisfaction for the British Monarchy against the Islands from Napoleon's France.

What is to come is another wonderful authentic written tale by this amazing author, in which Aubrey, Maturin and all the others figures come vividly to life within this tale set in the Napoleonic Wars, a war that is fought in this part of the world between Britain and France on the waves of the Indian Ocean.

Highly recommended, for this is another amazing addition to this wonderful series, and that's why I like to call this episode: "A Superb Mauritius Command"!

One person found this helpful

Kevin Crick

Good quality products

Reviewed in Australia on June 11, 2023

Verified Purchase

Great service

Rupert Hallmann

ein weiteres wichtiges Element der Serie

Reviewed in Germany on April 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

Eine weitere sehr spannende Erzählung aus der Serie Aubrey/Maturin, die die perfekte Mischung von Seefahrerroman und Historie darstellt. Die Spannungsbögen zwischen den Charakteren sind psychologisch wunderbar, die Eitelkeiten, Unsicherheiten, Erfolge und Misserfolge in einer wunderbaren Sprache beschrieben. Deshalb unbedingt auf Englisch lesen.

Translate review to English

Jeremy

Dashing adventures at sea

Reviewed in France on February 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

Another un-put-downable instalment in this brilliant series. Worth reading just for the description of the captains of Aubrey's squadron. I would love to read an account of the real life events this is presumably based on.
As always one thing feels strange : it is very hard to get an accurate impression of the time that goes by : weeks and months blur, and the pace of the action is sometimes hard to grasp : did that battle last mere minutes or endless hours? One can only hope it was the former for the sake of all concerned...

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

The Mauritius Command (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) Kindle Edition

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From Publishers Weekly

Review

Review

From the Inside Flap

From the Back Cover

About the Author

From AudioFile

Product details

Videos

About the author

Patrick O'Brian

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries