The Aubrey–Maturin series is a sequence of nautical historical novels—20 completed and one unfinished—by English author Patrick O'Brian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centring on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, a physician, natural philosopher, and intelligence agent. The first novel, Master and Commander, was published in 1969 and the last finished novel in 1999. The 21st novel of the series, left unfinished at O'Brian's death in 2000, appeared in print in late 2004. The series received considerable international acclaim, and most of the novels reached The New York Times Best Seller list. These novels comprise the heart of the canon of an author often compared to Jane Austen, C. S. Forester and other British authors central to English literature.
A replica of HMS Surprise at the San Diego Maritime Museum Diego Maritime Museum, based on HMS Rose and used in the film
A diagram of 1728 illustrating the exterior and rigging of a third-rate ship and the interior of a first-rate ship.
Nautical fiction, frequently also naval fiction, sea fiction, naval adventure fiction or maritime fiction, is a genre of literature with a setting on or near the sea, that focuses on the human relationship to the sea and sea voyages and highlights nautical culture in these environments. The settings of nautical fiction vary greatly, including merchant ships, liners, naval ships, fishing vessels, life boats, etc., along with sea ports and fishing villages. When describing nautical fiction, scholars most frequently refer to novels, novellas, and short stories, sometimes under the name of sea novels or sea stories. These works are sometimes adapted for the theatre, film and television.
An illustration from a 1902 printing of Moby-Dick, one of the renowned American sea novels
J. M. W. Turner, The Battle of Trafalgar (circa. 1806). Turner's seascapes reflect the Romantic movement's new attitude to the sea
The original cover of Cooper's The Pilot, printed in 1823.
The Polish cover to Joseph Conrad's 1904 novel Lord Jim