The Unknown Shore [Paperback]

Patrick O'Brian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1996

An immediate precursor to Patrick O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey/Maturin series, displaying all the splendid prose and attention to detail that O'Brian's readers expect.

Patrick O'Brian's first novel about the sea, The Golden Ocean, took inspiration from Commodore George Anson's fateful circumnavigation of the globe in 1740. In The Unknown Shore, O'Brian returns to this rich source and mines it brilliantly for another, quite different tale of exploration and adventure.

The Wager was parted from Anson's squadron in the fierce storms off Cape Horn and struggled alone up the coast of Chile until she was driven against the rocks and sank. The survivors were soon involved in trouble of every kind. A surplus of rum, a disappearing stock of food, and a hard, detested captain soon drove them into drunkenness, mutiny, and bloodshed. After many months of privation, a handful of men made their way northward under the guidance of a band of Indians, at last finding safety in Valparaiso.

This saga of survival is the background to the adventures of two young men aboard the Wager: midshipman Jack Byron and his friend Tobias Barrow, an alarmingly naive surgeon's mate. Patrick O'Brian's many devoted readers will take particular interest in this story, as Jack and Toby form a kind of blueprint for Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the famed heroes of the great Aubrey/Maturin series to come.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Unknown Shore, a sort-of sequel to The Golden Ocean, is a fascinating blue-print for the Aubrey-Maturin series. We follow Jack Byron and Tobias Barrow, two unlikely neighbors and fast friends in whom we catch glimpses of the heroes of the epic series to come. They set off to sea in 1740 as part of Commodore Anson's fleet to circumnavigate the globe. Byron, a romantic, forceful lad, signs on as a midshipman; Barrow, a strangely educated, scientifically brilliant boy, is running away from his father and wins a commission as a surgeon's mate. Set up in the Wager, which is parted from Anson's squadron and sinks somewhere along the desolate coast of Chile, Byron and Barrow are left to struggle for survival by wits alone, facing mutiny, famine, indifferent natives and lingering infighting. A fully realized hint of the fictional magic to come.

From Publishers Weekly

O'Brian's loyal following for the Aubrey/Maturin historical nautical adventure novels (The Wine-Dark Sea, etc.) has swelled from a cult to a legion of readers; thus there are many who will welcome this predecessor to that well-received series. Originally published in England in 1959 and based on British Commodore Anson's 1740 circumnavigation of the world (as was O'Brian's The Golden Ocean), this is the story of HMS Wager, a ship separated from Anson's squadron while sailing around Cape Horn. The Wager is shipwrecked off Patagonia, and the largest part of the narrative details the hardships of the diminishing band of survivors on that inhospitable shore. Daily shipboard routine, smoky 1740 London and the Indian community in Chile are all finely detailed. What will set devotees of O'Brian's better-known books positively aquiver, though, are the two chief characters: Jack Byron, an enthusiastic midshipman with "gaudy" family connections, and his best boyhood friend, Tobias Barrow, an unworldly budding doctor and naturalist. Their later counterparts are, of course, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, and O'Brian loyalists will have a field day comparing the four characters. Though this novel isn't quite as polished or stylish as the author's later work, it's a most honorable ancestor. Maps not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039331538X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393315387
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian's many books include "Testimonies," "The Golden Ocean," and "The Unknown Shore". O'Brian also wrote acclaimed biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and translated many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Lacouture's biographies of Charles de Gaulle. He passed away in January 2000 at the age of 85.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Typical Patrick O'Brian: Outstanding, July 15, 1998

By 

Doug Briggs - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unknown Shore (Paperback)

In O'Brian's first novel of the sea, The Golden Ocean, which is factual in its essential details, Commodore Anson set out in 1740 to circumnavigate the globe. Of his small fleet, only Anson's flagship survives to return to England loaded with gold and silver taken from a Spanish galleon. (Spain has every right to take great pride in its role of financing the Royal Navy for the good part of a century.)

One of the ships that began that fateful but historic voyage, the Wager, is driven by a fierce storm onto the rocky coast of Chile and wrecked. The Unknown Shore is the story of the travails of those who survived the disaster only to experience new tragedies, some of their own making, ashore. Only a few of those who made it ashore survive. Guided and otherwise given aid by natives, those few reach safety in Valparaiso, Chile.

As in all of O'Brian's remarkably well-written stories, his narrative of The Unknown Shore is rich, delightful, flawless. His attention to detai! ! l is splendid, and splendidly set down. The central characters in this book are a midshipman named Jack Byron and a surgeon's mate named Tobias Barrow. Barrow is totally inept with any of the demands of survival in the rough, but Byron provides him with the inspiration to persevere.

A fine story of depravation and wild adventure, told with O'Brian's top-notch craftsmanship. Jack Byron and Tobias Barrow are credible stand-ins for Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, yet to come in O'Brian's much more famous Aubrey/Maturin sagas, fans of which will be delighted with this precursor to that 18-book series.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Quite, October 27, 2004

By 

Joshua Carrollhach - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unknown Shore (Paperback)

I am a longtime reader of O'Brian's work and sought this out after I had exhausted the Aubrey-Maturin series for the second time. This story is often said to be a progenitor of the series, but I beg to differ. The main characters bear some resemblance to the two heroes, but are wholly unlike when closely examined.

This is a rich, detailed story at first, far funnier than many other of his novels. Midway through, though, he loses his thread (he often talks about sailors ashore being fools, and this may be a case in point) and never fully regains it. The story wanders through detailed descriptions of suffering and death with a deus ex machina end seemingly borne of the mutual exhaustion of both author and reader.

Tales of survival are well and good... inspiring, even, at times... but after a point it becimes an endurance test for even the most stalwart reader. In his later works, O'Brian learned that it was the characters and not the events that kept the reader enthralled. Sadly, this work wore on me: again and again the dismal tales of survival against all odds stacked up like cordwood until I was no longer interested.

The language is lovely, but the clean, superb O'Brian style fades away in the late-middle. This is not unusual in novels; few carry their bold beginnings to the end. With O'Brian, though, I had hoped for more, even in his early work.

There is some comfort that even such a master faltered at first, and that his later command of story, character and voice was learned (authors such as Saul Bellow are disturbing in their untiring published perfection, and I am cheered that one of my all-time favorites is capable of sometimes boring me.)

I would say that this is a journeyman piece: beautifully researched, well-begun but ultimately not up to the standard that set you reading it in the first place.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five stars ... plus., February 26, 2000

By 

anthony colin - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unknown Shore (Hardcover)

Jack and Toby: Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in ye merrie olde England. Great! When you've finished this, go on to the follow-up Aubrey/Maturin series, without a doubt the best written seafaring tales in all of literature. Mr. O'Brian died in January at age 85, leaving behind a legacy unmatched by few contemporary writers in the English language.