Beasts Royal: Twelve Tales of Adventure

(Paperback)

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Description

Beasts Royal is the second book written by Patrick OBrian made available, at last, for the first time since the 1930s and elegantly repackaged.
On the indigo waters of the South Sea, the crew of a schooner are attacked by a man-eating tiger-shark. In the humid depths of the African jungle, a thirty-foot python plots to rid himself of his rival, a wily old crocodile. Amid the heat and dust of the Punjab, the snake-charmer Hussein escapes into the forest on the elephant that he trained when a mahout in his youth.

With the dry wit and unsentimental precision OBrian would come to be loved for, we see the drama and tragedies of the natural world unfold for these, as well as other birds and beasts, in these twelve tales of animal adventure that would appear together in 1934 as the authors second book.

OBrians debut, Caesar, had been published in 1930 and became an instant success, seeing him hailed as the boy-Thoreau. His second novel, Hussein, would expand upon one of the stories included in this collection and has been praised by Martin Booth of The Daily Telegraph as being as fresh today as when it was written.so rich in detail, it is breathtaking. As with Caesar and Hussein, Beasts Royal sheds fascinating light on the formation of the literary genius behind the Aubrey-Maturin series of historical adventure tales, for which he is deservedly famous.

Reviews

Both books are full of the fantasy that has made OBrians seafaring yarns such a success. Like them, they are full of engaging adventures, curious lore, fond descriptions of food and scenes of battle Caesar makes delightful, often hilarious reading Hussein is more sophisticated. Here fully thirty years before Master and Commander was published is the unmistakable texture of OBrians historical fiction. Hussein has it all: the immersion in another world, full of local colour, the delight in a specialised vocabulary, the relish of male camaraderie, travel, treasure and fighting.
David Sexton, Evening Standard

OBrian admirers can now appreciate another dimension to his writing Alex OConnell, The Times

Author Bio

Patrick OBrian, until his death in 2000, was one of our greatest contemporary novelists. He is the author of the acclaimed AubreyMaturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He is the author of many other books including Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetimes contribution to literature. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He lived for many years in South West France and he died in Dublin in January 2000.