The Wine-Dark Sea

In this naval novel Jack Aubrey, now a commodore, takes the Surprise and a small squadron into the South Pacific after a cutting-out among the islands. Stephen Maturin continues intelligence work among Spanish American independence movements while treating the sick and collecting specimens. The ships meet an American privateer, a volcanic island, and the political tangle of Chile and Peru, and Jack must hold a mixed force together across huge distances. Shipboard routine, storms, and prize-taking run beside Stephen's coded correspondence. The book is one complete episode in the Aubrey-Maturin sequence, not a history of the Napoleonic Pacific.

Bound in blue buckram blocked in gold, black, white and red with a design by Neil Gower. Pale blue endleaves printed with map by Gower. Blue slipcase.