Patrick O'Brian

Patrick O'Brian (1914-2000) was an English novelist and translator, author of the 20-novel Aubrey-Maturin series of naval adventures set during the Napoleonic Wars, which began with Master and Commander (1969).

He was born Richard Patrick Russ at Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, on 12 December 1914 and died in Dublin on 2 January 2000; he is buried at Collioure in France beside his wife, Mary. He wrote as Patrick O'Brian, and in 1998 a BBC documentary and a Daily Telegraph report exposed his ancestry, original name and first marriage. Before the sea novels he published mainstream fiction, including Testimonies (1952) and The Catalans (1953), children's books such as The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore, biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso, and more than 30 translations from French, among them Henri Charrière's Papillon.

Master and Commander was commissioned by the American publisher J. B. Lippincott, which issued it in 1969, after Macmillan in Britain turned it down; Collins published it in Britain in 1970. The series follows Captain Jack Aubrey and the naval surgeon and naturalist Stephen Maturin through 20 novels, with an unfinished 21st published in 2004. Peter Weir's 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World drew on The Far Side of the World. He was appointed CBE.

For collectors. The Lippincott first edition of Master and Commander (1969) precedes the Collins edition of 1970, and the early novels sold slowly in America, where Lippincott published only the next two sequels. The manuscripts of 18 of the novels are held at the Lilly Library, Indiana University.