Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World

Rating:
Summary: This'll Shiver Your Timbers
Review:
By Bill Marsano. So far as publishers are concerned, they ain't over till they're over. I speak of (and they profit from) World War II and the Age of Fighting Sail. The former recently gave us "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors," a fine (and rare) account of our Navy's noblest victory; now the latter brings us "Patrick O'Brian's Navy"--which is not, please note, just for O'Brian fans.

All in all the book does an excellent job of conveying the context--from the British side--of the Royal Navy during its years of near-constant war with the French. It's large in format, heavily and handsomely illustrated with contemporary paintings, engravings, watercolors and cartoons as well as modern diagrams and maps. All are generously displayed. The text sometimes struggles to work its way around them, especially as there are frequent over-sized quotations and framed text blocks ("sidebars" containing abstracts from contemporary diaries and news reports) that occupy their own spaces.

Battle coverage is terrific. The Royal Navy's great triumphs are well detailed, as are several notable if not-so-well-known small actions, chosen for their display of aubreyesque daring and dash. And Lord Cochrane, one of the primary inspirations for Aubrey, gets extensive copverage all by his heroic self. The Royal Navy's internal world is also very nicely explored--ratings and ranks; manning and management (and mismanagement: mutinies are included); rigs and rigging, and--just when we run out of Frenchmen, pirates and slavers.

Organization is something of a problem. There's a tendency, once an picture-heavy design is established, for the text to be straitjacketed, for subjects be treated equally but inadequately, because the designers allot them just so much room and no more, and the text must be squeezed or cut to fit. Here, for example, gunnery has so little space that we get but a glance at the 32-pounder and never hear of carronades until another section many pages later. As a result, weaponry is merely sketched. Likewise with that frequent O'Brian phenomenon, the "weather gauge"--not well explained, and divided between two sections. Medicine at sea? Considering the importance of Stephen Maturin in the O'Brian series, it's almost ignored.

The book doesn't explain, and none can, the incredible fighting spirit of the British sailor, be he Jack Tar or Dick Nastyface. They were badly paid, ill fed and worse housed; they got little respect ashore or afloat; they risked death for mutiny and yet in the middle of a mutiny rallied round so soon as the French poked a masthead above the horizon--and then they'd beat the tar out of them more often than not.

Best thing to do is read this book through and then re-read the Aubrey-Maturin series all over again.--Bill Marsano is a professional writer and editor, and a generally boatful person.



Rating:
Summary: A beautiful companion to Patrick O'Brian's fiction
Review: "Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World" is one of those books that doesn't really have an author. Richard O'Neill is listed as the Consulting Editor, but the Editor and Indexer is Philip de Ste. Croix, and there are a number of "Contributors" including David Miller, who has his own Jack Aubrey-related book coming out soon ("The World of Jack Aubrey").

This is a handsome coffee table-size volume, about 150 pages long, and heavily illustrated. The illustrations may be its strongest point - hundreds of them, mostly contemporary to Jack Aubrey's era and mostly reproduced in vivid color. I have seen many of them before, but usually in black-and-white, so even just on this score, "Patrick O'Brian's Navy" is an attractive addition to a historical nautical library. And there are some modern illustrations as well, usually in the form of diagrams to show complex information such as sail and rigging designations, crew assignments, and the arrangement of watches. Other data is conveyed in tabular form, like those for uniform details, prize money distribution, and crew organization for various ship classes.

Although the primary focus is upon the Royal Navy, there are also chapters devoted to what might be called the geo-political world of the Napoleonic Era. There is a conscious effort to tie all this to Jack Aubrey and the O'Brian novels, with the text, detailing historical events in which Jack took part (including those before the start of the book series) and occasionally providing sidebars titled "Through Aubrey's Eyes" that relate particular subjects to volume and chapter of the novels. Although the overall level of information presented cannot equal that in Brian Lavery's "Nelson's Navy", this is nonetheless an interesting compendium of facts and anecdotes.

There are also two short addendums: "A Cast of Characters" listing the major people and ships in the O'Brian novels and describing their actions and fates, and a Glossary of nautical terms and slang.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful companion to Patrick O'Brian's fiction
Review: "Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World" is one of those books that doesn't really have an author. Richard O'Neill is listed as the Consulting Editor, but the Editor and Indexer is Philip de Ste. Croix, and there are a number of "Contributors" including David Miller, who has his own Jack Aubrey-related book coming out soon ("The World of Jack Aubrey").

This is a handsome coffee table-size volume, about 150 pages long, and heavily illustrated. The illustrations may be its strongest point - hundreds of them, mostly contemporary to Jack Aubrey's era and mostly reproduced in vivid color. I have seen many of them before, but usually in black-and-white, so even just on this score, "Patrick O'Brian's Navy" is an attractive addition to a historical nautical library. And there are some modern illustrations as well, usually in the form of diagrams to show complex information such as sail and rigging designations, crew assignments, and the arrangement of watches. Other data is conveyed in tabular form, like those for uniform details, prize money distribution, and crew organization for various ship classes.

Although the primary focus is upon the Royal Navy, there are also chapters devoted to what might be called the geo-political world of the Napoleonic Era. There is a conscious effort to tie all this to Jack Aubrey and the O'Brian novels, with the text, detailing historical events in which Jack took part (including those before the start of the book series) and occasionally providing sidebars titled "Through Aubrey's Eyes" that relate particular subjects to volume and chapter of the novels. Although the overall level of information presented cannot equal that in Brian Lavery's "Nelson's Navy", this is nonetheless an interesting compendium of facts and anecdotes.

There are also two short addendums: "A Cast of Characters" listing the major people and ships in the O'Brian novels and describing their actions and fates, and a Glossary of nautical terms and slang.

Rating:
Summary: Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Au
Review: O'Neill (The Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Warships) has produced a full-color reference book that, despite its somewhat misleading title, may turn out to be a useful purchase for followers of O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. The majority of the intelligently selected period paintings and drawings come from the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth, England, and the National Maritime Museum; that they are gathered under one cover is certainly a major strength of the book. In addition to the illustrations, O'Neill provides a well-researched historical account of what was going on during the Napoleonic Wars, a glossary of nautical terminology, and a "cast list" both of major fictional characters and of historical personalities encountered in the novels. For good measure, they also include throughout a series of informational boxes titled "Through Aubrey's Eyes" that provide links between the factual material and scenes and events from the O'Brian novels. Not quite as authoritative as Brian Lavery's Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1783- 1815 or as helpful as Dean King's A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales, this may be an attractive acquisition for large public libraries with an interest both in O'Brian's novels and in the iconography of sea warfare during the Napoleonic era.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Informative Book
Review: Patrick O'Brian's Navy is a wonderful encyclopedic volume of the British Navy of the 19th Century. My only dissappointment is that I thought it would be more like the Hornblower Companion. What it is missing are maps that allow the reader to follow Aubrey's routes as the novels unfold. However, the quality of the articles and illustrations made my dissappointment short-lived.

Rating:
Summary: Splendid Overview of British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars
Review: Richard O'Neill's coffee table book is a splendid, though terse, overview of the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. It does a fine job covering virtually every aspect, from the types of ships to their crews and various subjects such as punishment and entertainment available onshore and off by seamen. It is not the definitive word on the Royal Navy during this period, nor is it meant to be, since O'Neill spends much time relating the real history to the events chronicled in O'Brian's novels. May be regarded as an essential purchase by diehard fans of the Aubrey/Maturin series.

Rating:
Summary: What a beautiful book
Review: This would make a lovely Father's Day present, it is really beautiful. It is also highly interesting and informative. Being a 'coffee table' book can sometimes be a criticism. In this case it is not. This IS a book you will proudly keep where people can see it, but you will also find it infinitely interesting to dip into every now and then.