The Fortune of War
Bound home from the far side of the world to take up a new command, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin have their passage interrupted by a fire aboard ship, and they find themselves caught up in a war that began while they were away.
About
The Fortune of War is the sixth novel of the Aubrey-Maturin series by the English writer Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1979. It is set during the War of 1812, and it is the book in which the long voyage that began with the Leopard finally comes to its end.
The Leopard reaches Port Jackson with her prisoners and then sails on to the Dutch East Indies, where she is found to be too rotten for further service as a fighting ship. Aubrey and a handful of his people are given passage home in a packet, with a new command waiting for them in England, and it is the packet's passage that is broken by fire and by the outbreak of war.
Being on the wrong side of a new war in an American port leaves the two friends with problems that seamanship does not answer, and the book gives them a great deal of time ashore among people whose cause they do not share. Its two naval engagements are drawn closely from events of 1812, with the names of the ships changed.
Book details
- Author
- Patrick O'Brian
- First published
- 1979
- Series
- Aubrey-Maturin, book 6
- Subgenre
- Sea adventure, Naval adventure
- Primary genre
- Adventure, Historical Fiction
- Tags
- No tags for this book.
- Reading order
- Also on this shelf: Master and Commander (book 1), The Mauritius Command (book 4), The Surgeon's Mate (book 7), The Ionian Mission (book 8), Treason's Harbour (book 9), The Far Side of the World (book 10), The Reverse of the Medal (book 11), The Letter of Marque (book 12), The Thirteen-Gun Salute (book 13), The Wine-Dark Sea (book 16), The Commodore (book 17)
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