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    Clarissa Oakes
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    Clarissa Oakes
    Unavailable
    Clarissa Oakes
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Clarissa Oakes

    Written by Patrick O’Brian

    Narrated by Robert Hardy

    4/5

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    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    With factions on board, and multiple enemies to contend with, only the most careful navigation will save them.

    As he sails away from Port Jackson, Captain Jack Aubrey feels nothing but relief at leaving the penal colony and its inhabitants far behind. But, unknown to him, hidden among his crew is one Clarissa Oakes. With Britain at war on two fronts, with both America and France, Aubrey’s orders are to make for the Sandwich Islands and intervene in the conflict there.

    How much trouble can one woman cause?

    ‘One moment you laugh out loud at comedy rooted in character, and the next, storming adventure or danger grips you by the throat . . . good writing allied to must-read-on storytelling.’
    SHAUN USHER, Daily Mail

    ‘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

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 15, 2005
    ISBN9780007217472
    Unavailable
    Clarissa Oakes
    Author

    Patrick O’Brian

    Patrick O’Brian was born in 1914 and published his first book, Caesar, when he was only fifteen. In the 1960s he began work on the idea that, over the next four decades, evolved into the twenty-novel long Aubrey–Maturin series (with an extra unfinished volume published posthumously). In 1995 he was awarded the CBE, and in 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He died in January 2000 at the age of 85.

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    Reviews for Clarissa Oakes

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      As Jack departs Australia, it soon becomes clear that there is more than one convict escaping on the Surprise. To Jack's dismay, this one is a woman in the protection of Mr. Oaks. Her name is Clarissa Harvill and she proves a surprisingly amiable companion on board. But just as Jack feared, her presence has set feelings on edge and the crew grows more and more disconsolate as their journey takes them away to the island of Tonga.
    • 3/5
      Stephen and Captain Aubrey continue their adventures on the high seas. This book is, like all the rest, full of beautifully understated but rich character moments.
    • 4/5
      Typical O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin - rich characters, page-turning plot and an incredibly vivid and evocative prose. Excellent.
    • 4/5
      Clarissa Oakes, Patrick O’Brian’s fifteenth book in his Aubrey-Maturin series, picks up shortly after the events of The Nutmeg of Consolation, with Captain Jack Aubrey and the crew of the Suprise having departed from Australia with two unexpected new passengers: Stephen’s former assistant, Padeen, who had been transported to Australia in lieu of a death sentence for attacking a man while in the throes of addiction to laudanum; and Clarissa Harvill, brought aboard by Midshipman Oakes.The broad plot focuses on Aubrey and the Surprise traveling to Moahu, where they will aid Queen Puolani against a rival claimant to the throne, Kalahua, who has allied himself with the French and captured the crew of the English whaler Truelove. Along the way, they stop and resupply at Annamooka in Tonga, offering O’Brian the opportunity to further explore Polynesian culture. While this sets the plot in motion, much of the story explores shipboard life and the complications that can arise due to jealousies and rivalries with a midshipman’s wife aboard. The novel also continues the circumnavigation of the globe that began in The Thirteen Gun Salute and will end in The Commodore.Like the previous eight novels, Clarissa Oakes exists outside the normal flow of time – this novel being the ninth of eleven to exist in what O’Brian described as an extended 1812, with these books taking place between the beginning of June 1813 and November 1813. Those looking for a perfect chronology are advised to simply enjoy the story and the way in which O’Brian perfectly recreates the world of the Napoleonic Wars, using Aubrey and Stephen’s activities to comment on the rapid changes occurring in this era and the passage of time in the series’ internal chronology. Interestingly, the U.S. edition changed the title to The Truelove, after the British whaling vessel that appears near the end. This Folio Society edition reprints the original text with insets containing historical portraits and sketches to illustrate some of the scenes.
    • 4/5
      In which Aubrey suspects something gravely amiss with his crew, and finds his efforts to confirm are frustrated both by naval tradition and his own history as a mid. Maturin endeavours to find sanctuary in Australia for two rescued children, thereby stumbling upon secrets closer to England. Leaving Botany Bay and ostensibly bound for South America, the Surprises again find themselves waylaid by a proxy war in Moahu (Sandwich Islands).//Clarissa Oakes related by marriage to mid Oakes, in fact wed by Martin at sea in order to avoid deportation if the cutter following Surprise is after absconders.The original "mini-series" starts with Volume 11 (mission to Chile & Peru), they have been waylaid these several volumes since.Events pick up immediately after The Nutmeg of Consolation and close a number of months later, in the same quarter of the globe.
    • 4/5
      Little action, much character development.
    • 4/5
      A perfectly good, if fairly unremarkable, installment in the series. As usual, I wanted Maturin to be able to see more birds.
    • 4/5
      The American title "The Truelove" is one of those titles that doesn't connect very well to the story. The ship in question is only tangentially part of the plot line. The British title "Clarissa Oakes" is better, because Clarissa is a major part of the story - but the title is unusual for the series. Not that titles play a major part in my enjoyment of a novel, but this title anomaly reflects the uniqueness of this story in the series. While there is the requisite sailing and fighting, the introduction of a woman to the ship - and an unusual woman at that - give this story it's real conflict
    • 5/5
      The quote on the front cover of my edition of Clarissa Oakes reads "The greatest historical novelist of all time." (The Times). Usually, such a description would warrant qualification, or simply be out-and-out hyperbole. In this case, however, it is nothing other than the truth. O'Brian has delivered not just a novel, but a whole series of novels, whose every page is a sustained, joyful coruscation of un-showy brilliance. Masterful. And indeed commanding.
    • 4/5
      Another good one by O'Brian. Not as much naval battle as I would have liked, but still a good read.