The Frigate Surprise: The Complete Story of the Ship Made Famous in the Novels of Patrick O'Brian

by Geoff Hunt and Brian Lavery

There is no more famous a vessel in naval fiction than HMS Surprise, the principal ship in Patrick O'Brian's much-celebrated Aubrey-Maturin series of novels. Yet, this 28-gun frigate also had an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393070093
• ISBN13: 9780393070095
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 11.4" x 12.1"

Customer Reviews

Save a place on your bookshelf

Lavery was already the author of two outstanding coffee-table-sized volumes on the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic wars and on the now-classic series of novels by Patrick O'Brian -- _Nelson's Navy_ and _Jack Aubrey Commands_. This one, focusing on Aubrey's favorite ship, is the hat trick. If you already own the first two, you're definitely going to want this one to sit beside them on the shelf, and to be taken down and re-perused at intervals. SURPRISE was a real frigate, of course, launched by the French (by whom it had been named L'UNITE) in 1794, captured by the British barely two years later, and a participant in several notable actions and adventures after that, under several captains. It's career was rather short, actually, as the Navy Board sold it to the knackers in 1802 -- but in "Lucky Jack" Aubrey's world, she escaped and went on to circumnavigate the world, capture a very much larger Spanish ship, and engage in privateering and intelligence-gathering. This book covers both of SURPRISE's lives, factual and fictional, as Lavery extensively quotes and summarizes the ship's logs and muster rolls, explains what the terse record actually represents, and considers the personalities of the men who commanded her. Hunt has become moderately well off doing the paintings that grace the novels' covers but he was already a noted marine artist and is now one of the very best; his works beautifully complement Lavery's text -- as do the technical drawings, the reproduced original plans, and the numerous photos of surviving ships and modern reconstructions, including the version of SURPRISE that appeared in the Russell Crowe film (for which both Lavery and Hunt were also technical advisers). To sum it all up: It's a beautiful, engrossing, amazing book. Buy it. If you can't afford it, get it from the library. But read it.

Great for O'Brien fans

fine background on the Surprise(s) that existed in the Royal Navy and on the replica ship used in the movie. Even lists a ship's company by name and rate. Great background for O'Brian fans.

The Real HMS Surprise - Fascinating

In his Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian wrote of HMS Surprise, a small British frigate, originally captured from the French. Over several books, the Surprise became almost as beloved a character, in her own way, as Jack Aubrey and Doctor Maturin themselves. Independent of her qualities in fiction, HMS Surprise was indeed a real ship upon which O'Brian based the ship in his novels. Now, Brian Lavery, the noted naval historian and author of more than twenty books on the Royal Navy, and Geoff Hunt, the president Royal Society of Marine Artists and the painter of many of the covers in the Aubrey Maturin series, have written The Frigate Surprise: The Complete Story of the Ship Made Famous in the Novels of Patrick O'Brian. What makes the book so interesting is that it brings into sharp focus the differences between the ship of history and that represented in O'Brian's novels. Equally fascinating is that the book also helps to contrast the Royal Navy of history with the often romanticized versions of fiction. It is an intriguing tale and it is hard to image two better qualified storytellers than Lavery and Hunt. The Frigate Surprise is organized in four parts. The first - an account of the HMS Surprise of history is the longest section of the book. Roughly halfway through, this account is judiciously interrupted by a chapter describing what it would have been like to tour the Surprise, followed by a chapter of wonderful drawings of the Surprise by Karl Heintz Marquardt. Once the reader is firmly grounded in the geography of the ship, the book continues with the second half of its career. There is a slim chapter titled, "Jack Aubrey's Surprise" which summarizes the entire Aubrey/Maturin series for that most unlikely reader who may have purchased the book without having been familiar with the O'Brian novels. The final chapter of the book is almost the most intriguing because it is so very different from the nine chapters that precede it. So far Brian Lavery appears to be providing the narrative supported by prints of Geoff Hunt paintings and other paintings from the period. In the last chapter, however, the artist is given a voice. Geoff Hunt describes his research in preparation for painting the Surprise, including the hull, the rigging, fittings and color schemes. He then describes composing the many covers that he painted for the series, starting with his sketches and studies and ending with the finished works. Fascinating stuff. For any lover of the work of Patrick O'Brian, The Frigate Surprise is a wonderful book. The Frigate Surprise says less about the world created by Patrick O'Brian than it does about the real world of the Royal Navy from which O'Brian's world was drawn, but that is not a bad thing either.

In a word, superb!

The pages of "The Frigate Surprise" are filled with large reproductions of glorious Geoff Hunt paintings of the ship made famous by the novels of Patrick O'Brian, along with Royal Navy plans of Surprise herself upon her capture from the French (and of her sister ship, La Tourterelle), exquisite plans and drawings by Karl Marquardt (providing sail plans both per historical records and, as described in the O'Brian novels, with the mainmast of a 36-gun frigate), and photographs of the 20th century-built HMS Rose in her guise as the Surprise for the film "Master and Commander" and of other tall ships and models, plus narrative text from Brian Lavery on the Surprise's historical and fictional careers and by Geoff Hunt upon the challenges of painting the ship. There are also lists of spar dimensions as equipped the Surprise in 1802 and of the actual crew as of Oct. 1, 1799, a copy of an 1801 evaluation of the ship's sailing qualities by her captain, and even a little pen sketch by Patrick O'Brian himself of the deck plan as he envisioned it. There is also a wonderfully vivid "tour" through the Surprise detailed by Lavery. The Surprise for any fan of the Aubrey-Maturin Canon must occupy a spot in our hearts rather like 221B Baker Street in the Sherlock Holmes Canon: both a paradigmatic locale for the heroes and a nexus between the real world and their fictional universe. I cannot imagine how any fan of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels could fail to be captivated by this superb volume. For Aubrey-Maturin readers, "The Frigate Surprise" deserves the highest recommendation.

And complete is Right!

This is a large format book with hard back and colour illustrations on almost every page. In short, an awful lot of book for the price. Whilst, generally speaking, books about a single ship tend to appeal to the smallest possible audience, this book will have a wider application because of the excellent way in which it has been laid out, the additional information it embraces, of course, the extra interest generated by the fans of those books by Patrick O' Brian. HMS Surprise was captured from the French in 1796 and then served in the Royal Navy with distinction. She was decommissioned at Deptford in 1802. Unlike other ships to have suffered a similar fate, it is at this point that HMS Surprise becomes the command of Jack Aubrey and went on to be the most famous ship in fictional literature. As with all "fiction based on fact," there will be those who always wanted to know more about the real HMS Surprise and this book does justice to that demand, the period of naval history in question and, most important of all, the ship itself. The text is fascinating and as riveting as any work of fiction as we work our way through the life and trials of this vessel. The photography is not only of the highest standard, it is also well thought out and includes examples of similar items and ships which survive to this day. Then there are the maps, plans and line drawings - with sufficient information for any scale modeller. As a writer whose own books contain outstanding marine art, I am also able to fully appreciate the work involved in producing the paintings reproduced throughout this work. They are exceptional and, in addition to the obvious skills of artist Geoff Hunt, reveal his detailed research and analysis of each ship type which enabled him to finally produce such excellent work. This book is as complete a work on a subject as one might hope to find. It will be of interest to historians, ship lovers, enthusiasts of yesterday's navy, scale modellers and will also fill a very big gap for those fans of the fictional adventures of Captain Aubrey. Perhaps most important of all, it will appeal to anyone who likes reading a really good quality book. NM