Overview

There is no more famous a vessel in naval fiction than HMS Surprise, the principal ship in Patrick O'Brian's much-celebrated Aubrey-Maturin series of novels. Yet, this 28-gun frigate also had an eventful real career serving in both the French and then the Royal Navies. It was captured from the French in 1796 and took part in the famous cutting-out action on the frigate HMS Hermione, which the Spanish had taken after a savage mutiny. In 1802, after the Peace of Amiens, HMS Surprise was decommissioned and delivered into the fictional captaincy of Jack Aubrey. This sumptuous new volume narrates the career of HMS Surprise in both her historical and her fictional roles and presents an all-embracing construction and fitting history. In addition to historical illustrations, maps, artifacts, and photographs, thirty-five paintings, some specially commissioned, have been contributed by Geoff Hunt, whose art graces the covers of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. Fifty line plans have been drawn by the marine draftsman Karl Heinz Marquardt. This limited edition, slipcased hardcover contains a signed print by Geoff Hunt.

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9780393070620

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Geoff Hunt is the current president of the Royal Society of Marine Artists and the author of The Marine Art of Geoff Hunt. He was an advisor on Peter Weir's film Master and Commander. Brian Lavery, a curator emeritus at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, is the author of Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation 1793-1815. Nikolai Tolstoy is a highly recognized historian and biographer. He is a White Russian and heir to the senior line of the Tolstoy family. His great-grandfather was a cousin of the world-famous novelist. In compiling Victims of Yalta, Tolstoy spent five years of intensive research traveling all over Europe to interview survivors and inspect sites of repatriation operations. His previous works include The Coming of the King, The Quest for Merlin, The Minister and the Massacres, The Night of the Long Knives, Stalin's Secret War, and The Tolstoys. He lives in Somerset, England.

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