Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O’Brian wrote his first book, Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda-Leopard at the age of twelve, but when he was fifty-four years old he became a celebrated author with millions of readers. Born Richard Patrick Russ in England in 1914, the eighth of nine children, O’Brian changed his name in 1945. His 1969 novel, Master and Commander, featured the story of an 18th century seafaring adventure with Capt. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the ship’s surgeon. There would follow nineteen more Aubrey and Maturin novels, popular for their historical precision, in-depth psychological profiles, heart-racing action, and characters of quick-thinking wit. O’Brian’s writings were not confined to this best selling series of the British Navy and the Napoleonic Wars. He also published the novels Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore, biographies of Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks, and translated works from French including Simone de Beauvoir and Lacouture’s biography of Charles de Gaulle. O’Brian died in Dublin, in 2000.
