The Patrick O’Brian Weekend

Napoleonic News Desk

by Paul Chamberlain

Fans of the adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin will be interested in this conference being run at the Royal Naval Museum on 21-23 September 2001. The novels of Patrick O’Brian are now by far the most popular fictional accounts of Nelson’s Navy, outstripping even C.S.Forester and his famous hero, Horatio Hornblower. This special weekend will celebrate O’Brian’s unique achievement with a variety of events. The lectures, by the leading naval historians Michael Duffy, Brain Lavery, Sir James Watt, Geoff Hunt, Brian Patterson and Colin White, will explore how the novels closely reflect the insights of modern scholarship. A concert of music and readings will celebrate the extraordinary friendship of Captain Jack Aubrey and Surgeon Stephen Maturin that gives the novels their emotional heart. The highlight of the weekend will be a guided tour of Nelson’s great flagship HMS Victory, followed by the rare privilege of dinner on her Lower Gundeck, at mess tables slung between her 32-pounder guns. For full details contact the Royal Naval Museum, HM Naval Base, PP66, Portsmouth PO1 3NH. Telephone 023 9272 7565. Email: carolyne.heneghan@royalnavalmuseum.org Napoleonic News Desk by Paul Chamberlain French Commanders Study Group With Napoleon in Russia (book) The Patrick O’Brian Weekend Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #59 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com