The Reverse of the Medal
Patrick O'Brian
(Author)
Description
Captain Jack Aubrey, R. N., ashore after a successful cruise, is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make certain investments in the City. This innocent decision ensnares him in the London criminal underground and in government espionage--the province of his friend Stephen Maturin. Is Aubrey's humiliation and the threatened ruin of his career a deliberate plot? This dark tale is a fitting backdrop to the brilliant characterization and sparkling dialogue which O'Brian's readers have come to expect.
Product Details
Price
$15.95
$14.83
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
July 17, 1992
Pages
304
Dimensions
5.56 X 8.16 X 0.57 inches | 0.59 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780393309607
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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.
Reviews
There is not a writer alive whose work I value over his.--Stephen Becker
[O'Brian's] attention to period speech and detail is uncompromising, and while the cascades of nautical lore can be dizzying, both aficionados and newcomers will be swept up by the richness of Mr. O'Brian's prodigious imagination.--Scott Veale
I haven't read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O'Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn't stop.--E. O. Wilson
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
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
I devoured Patrick O'Brian's 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog.--Christopher Hitchens
[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
The Aubrey-Maturin series... far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart.--Ken Ringle
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
Gripping and vivid... a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit.--A. S. Byatt
Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.--James Hamilton-Paterson
[O'Brian's] attention to period speech and detail is uncompromising, and while the cascades of nautical lore can be dizzying, both aficionados and newcomers will be swept up by the richness of Mr. O'Brian's prodigious imagination.--Scott Veale
I haven't read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O'Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn't stop.--E. O. Wilson
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
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
I devoured Patrick O'Brian's 20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog.--Christopher Hitchens
[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
The Aubrey-Maturin series... far beyond any episodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and the human heart.--Ken Ringle
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
Gripping and vivid... a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit.--A. S. Byatt
Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.--James Hamilton-Paterson
