The Commodore

In this naval novel Jack Aubrey, newly made commodore, takes a small squadron south to intercept slave ships on the West African coast, then north to Irish waters against a rumored French descent. Stephen Maturin sails as physician and intelligence agent, uneasy about the trade he is ordered to suppress and about his wife Diana and their daughter Brigid at home. Shipboard routine, prize-taking, and squadron politics share the book with Maturin's natural history and a strained marriage. The action continues the Aubrey-Maturin sequence. It is a historical novel of command at sea, not a treatise on abolition.

Bound in dark bue buckram, cover blocked in gilt and colour with a design by Neil Gower. Map endpapers printed dark grey on light blue. Blue slipcase.