The first ever collection of poems by the acclaimed author of the
Aubrey/Maturin series of Napoleonic naval adventures.
As we have stood with Jack and Stephen on the deck of the Surprise and
other ships, readers around the world have been transported to a place
and time at once familiar and exotic, routine and dramatic.
At all times, Patrick O'Brian's deep knowledge of the period and
profound empathy with the landscape of the sea has ensured there is
always a firm hand on the tiller. The writer's command of language is
combined with the poet's eye for visual detail to remarkable, and
unforgettable effect.
In The Uncertain Land and Other Poems, those same strengths are
vividly displayed as O'Brian leads us on a journey through his own life.
Here, we see a writer full of a young man's spirit, challenging life,
and here an author reflecting an old man's melancholy at youth gone; in
between, as he describes the places that he lived and people that he
encountered, are poems of sly observation, wry humour and delicate
beauty.
Through more than 100 poems, O'Brian reveals insights into the world
that captivated him while he was at work on a succession of novels that
would reach its apotheosis in the Aubrey/Maturin adventures, which would
secure his reputation as 'the Homer of the Napoleonic Wars'. Intensely
personal, allusive and unique, this is the work of a lifetime, published
now for the very first time.
