On half-pay and without a command, Captain Jack Aubrey is stranded at home in an over-crowded cottage with his large and frequently bad-tempered family. When Jack has almost given up hope of ever-returning to sea, Stephen Maturin, ship's doctor, occasional intelligence agent, and Jack's closest friend, brings secret orders that Jack is to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a Commodore's pennant. In the months that follow, Jack's character and authority will be tested not only in engagements with the French fleet but also by the difficulty of managing the contrasting characters of the men under his command.

Based on the actual campaign in the Indian Ocean in 1810, 'The Mauritius Command' is a gripping evocation in authentic detail of naval life of the period.

Reviews

“Exciting news for Mr O’Brian’s growing number of fans that his clever stories of Napoleonic seafaring are available as abridged audiobooks. Better still, they’re read by salty dog Robert Hardy.”
Evening Standard 10/2/97

‘…full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein… Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.’
James Hamilton- Paterson

‘You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O’Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.’
Kevin Myers, Irish Times

‘Patrick O’Brian has written splendid novels — of which The Mauritius Command is the latest — recounting episodes in the lives of the naval officer Jack Aubrey and his friend the saturnine Irish physician, Stephen Maturin… Taken together, the novels are a brilliant achievement. They display staggering erudition on almost all aspects of early nineteenth-century life, with impeccable period detail. [Compared to Bush and Hornblower] Aubrey and Maturin are subtler, richer items; in addition, Patrick O’Brian has a gift for the comic which Forester lacks.’
T.J. Binyon, Times Literary Supplement

‘O’Brian has a monumental knowledge of Naval history of the time. Nothing is glamorised. The press gangings, the floggings, the squalor are all here. But here, too, are heroism and humour.’
Mark Kahn, Sunday Mirror

‘The Mauritius Command is outstanding’
Observer