Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > O'Brian, Patrick - Martin Jacques (review date 6 September 1998)

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Martin Jacques (review date 6 September 1998)

SOURCE: “A Credible Shivering of Timbers,” in Observer, September 6, 1998, p. 16.

[In the following positive review, Jacques praises the writing and sense of history in The Hundred Days.]

Historical novels are an extraordinary genre. They have the ability to convey the feel, the detail, the language, the etiquette, the technology of the time like no conventional history book can ever do. While historical works are strong on explanation and fact, only historical novels can transport your soul and your senses back to the period in question. Their only rival is a good television historical drama, or its big screen equivalent, but the experience is somehow less total. The historical novel is a three-dimensional experience, four if you allow for your own imagination, while the screen is strictly two.

Of course, much depends on the quality of the telling and it is here that Patrick...

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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