Patrick O'Brian: The Making of the Novelist

(Paperback)

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The definitive account of the early life of the revered author of the Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin novels. To many, Patrick O'Brian was the greatest British novelist of the Twentieth Century. The twenty volumes of the series set in the Royal Navy of the beginning of the Nineteenth Century and featuring Aubrey and Maturin have been hailed as 'the best historical novels ever written' by the New York Times. Nikolai Tolstoy was O'Brian's stepson and his acquaintanceship with him lasted forty-five years during most of O'Brian's marriage to Mary Tolstoy, Nikolai's mother. Tolstoy stayed with the couple regularly at their French home and was a frequent correspondent with the reclusive and secretive author, discovering facets of his character and creative genius that he showed to no one else. He has unique access to letters, notebooks and photographs, which will appear in this book. This volume tells the story of O'Brian's life up to his decision to move to Collioure in the South of France. His oppressed childhood, his precocious writing success, his first visit to Ireland, his sailing experiences as a young man, and the truth behind his first marriage, divorce and name change are all dealt with. This is the first part of the definitive biography of one of our literary geniuses.

Reviews

"Tolstoy's book is not the horror Patrick might have feared. Neither hagiography nor hatchet job, it is a balanced, revealing, critical yet sympathetic account. Furthermore, it lives up to its subtitle." The Spectator "one of the most gripping literary biographies of recent years" Sunday Times "Tolstoy corrects errors of fact and representation and paints a much fuller picture" Sunday Telegraph "Don't be daunted by detail: Tolstoy writes with that passion to understand that characterises the best biographies." Books of the Year, The Spectator "Reading Tolstoy is like reading a fine, detailed detective story; the meticulousness of his research is wholly admirable. But what is most striking is the delicate skill with which he parallels O' Brian's self and experiences, daring persuasively to link imagined events and characters to the realities of the world that the writer inhabited... This first volume of Tolstoy's biography is brilliantly invasive, and to be treasured because it exposes and rebuts much falseness that has been written about O' Brian." The Times

Author Bio

Nikolai Tolstoy is a highly recognised historian and biographer. His works include The Quest for Merlin, The Minister and the Massacres, The Night of the Long Knives, Victims of Yalta, and Stalin's Secret War.