Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > O'Brian, Patrick - Elliott Abrams (review date 24 January 1994)

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Elliott Abrams (review date 24 January 1994)

SOURCE: “Seaworthy,” in National Review, Vol. 46, January 24, 1994, p. 65.

[In the following positive review, Abrams argues that The Wine-Dark Sea is first and foremost a straightforward adventure story.]

Patrick O'Brian [author of The Wine-Dark Sea] is a 79-year-old Irishman who has lived in the south of France for four decades. In addition to translating all of Simone de Beauvoir, a bit of Colette, and Jean Lacouture's recent biography of de Gaulle, he has written well-received biographies of Picasso and Joseph Banks, and many other novels. In 1969 he began publishing a series of sea stories set in the Napoleonic period. The series relates the adventures of a British sea captain, Jack Aubrey, and his friend Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and British intelligence agent. Five of these tales were published in the United States in the early 1970s, but poor sales led the...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. John Bayley (essay date 7 November 1991)
   2. Frank Stewart (review date 4 April 1993)
   3. Byron Rogers (review date 10 July 1993)
   4. Michael Dirda (review date August 1993)
   5. Patrick T. Reardon (review date 19 December 1993)
   6. Frederick Pratter (review date 31 December 1993)
   7. John Balzar (review date 2 January 1994)
   8. Thomas McGonigle (review date 2 January 1994)
   9. Elliott Abrams (review date 24 January 1994)
   10. James Hamilton-Paterson (review date 26 December 1994)
   11. Frederick Pratter (review date 2 May 1995)
   12. Katherine A. Powers (review date July 1995)
   13. Sam Pickering (review date Spring 1996)
   14. Thomas R. Edwards (essay date Summer 1996)
   15. John Balzar (review date 20 October 1996)
   16. Edward T. Wheeler (review date 8 November 1996)
   17. Christopher Clausen (review date 16 December 1996)
   18. James Teacher (review date 4 January 1997)
   19. John Mullan (review date 10 January 1997)
   20. Books Magazine (review date October 1997)
   21. Molly Finn (essay date 19 June 1998)
   22. Alan Judd (review date 22 August 1998)
   23. Barbara Everett (review date 4 September 1998)
   24. Martin Jacques (review date 6 September 1998)
   25. Christopher Hitchens (essay date 9 March 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright