Master And Commander: Patrick O'Brian

Book I of Aubrey and Maturin. The beginning of the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and secret agent. As the Royal Navy takes part in the wars against Napoleonic France, young Jack Aubrey receives his first command - the small, old and slow HMS Sophie. Accompanied by his eccentric new friend, the physician and naturalist Stephen Maturin, Aubrey does battle with the naval hierarchy - despite his tendency to make social blunders - and faces the challenges of forging an effective crew before ultimately taking on enemy ships in a vivid, intricately detailed series of sea battles. Full of detailed description of life aboard a Nelsonic man-of-war, weapons, food, conversation and ambiance, the landscape and the sea.