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The Ionian Mission
''The Ionian Mission'' is the eighth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1981. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars. The plot begins with the marriage of Dr Maturin and Diana Villiers. Soon after, Captain Aubrey takes HMS ''Worcester'' on blockade duty around Toulon, France, until the ship is sent for refitting. With ''Worcester'' refitting, he is reassigned to HMS ''Surprise'' on which he, Maturin and Professor Graham seek a new ally among the pashas on the coast of the Ionian Sea. In reviews at the time of the 1991-92 reissue of this novel, one reviewer described Maturin's "hair-raising infiltration of the enemy coast" and then the mission of the title by Aubrey and Maturin, "to the Greek islands to tinker with the balance of power at the fringes of the Turkish empire", summing it up as "splendid adventures at a stately pace". Another finds that time aboard the old ship ''Worcester'' has little excitement, while tensi ...
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Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, Order of the British Empire, CBE (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and centred on the friendship of the English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. The 20-novel series, the first of which is ''Master and Commander'', is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and evocative language. A partially finished 21st novel in the series was published posthumously containing facing pages of handwriting and typescript. O'Brian wrote a number of other novels and short stories, most of which were published before he achieved success with the Aubrey–Maturin series. He also translated works from French to English, and wrote biographies of Joseph Banks: A Life, Joseph Banks and Picasso. ...
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Corfu
Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered by three municipalities with the islands of Othonoi, Ereikoussa, and Mathraki.https://corfutvnews.gr/diaspasi-deite-tin-tropologia/ The principal city of the island (pop. 32,095) is also named Corfu. Corfu is home to the Ionian University. The island is bound up with the history of Greece from the beginnings of Greek mythology, and is marked by numerous battles and conquests. Ancient Korkyra took part in the Battle of Sybota which was a catalyst for the Peloponnesian War, and, according to Thucydides, the largest naval battle between Greek city states until that time. Thucydides also reports that Korkyra was one of the three great naval powers of fifth century BC Greece, alo ...
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French Frigate Junon (1806)
The ''Junon'' was a ''Gloire'' class 40-gun frigate of the French Navy. Launched in 1806, she saw service during the Napoleonic Wars, escorting merchant convoys to France's besieged Caribbean colonies. In February 1809 she was captured at sea after a fierce engagement with four Royal Navy vessels. Recommissioned as HMS ''Junon'', she served as part of the British blockade of French ports in the Caribbean. French frigates recaptured her in December 1809 off the French colony of Guadeloupe. The engagement so damaged ''Junon'' that her captors scuttled her. Capture by Britain On 10 November 1808, under ''capitaine de frégate'' Rousseau, ''Junon'' departed for Martinique, along with ''Vénus'', ''Amphitrite'', ''Cygne'' and ''Papillon''. The squadron broke apart the next day, and she found herself isolated. On 10 February 1809 she ran across a British squadron composed of the frigates and , the brig , and the schooner ; ''Junon'' surrendered after a lengthy resistance that left ...
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French Ship Jemmapes (1794)
''Jemmapes'' was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. Laid down as ''Alexandre'', she was renamed ''Jemmapes'' on 7 January 1793 in honour of the Battle of Jemappes. She took part in the Atlantic campaign of May 1794 and ultimately in the Glorious First of June. She was attacked and totally dismasted by , with the loss of 60, including her captain, and 55 wounded. She took part in the expedition to Saint-Domingue under Julien Cosmao. She was part of Zacharie Allemand's "invisible squadron", under Captain Jean-Nicolas Petit. She fought at the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809. She was used as a hulk in Rochefort, Charente-Maritime Rochefort ( oc, Ròchafòrt), unofficially Rochefort-sur-Mer (; oc, Ròchafòrt de Mar, link=no) for disambiguation, is a city and communes of France, commune in Southwestern France, a port on the Charente (river), Charente estuary. It is a Subpr ... from 1830, and was later broken up. Notes, citations, and references Notes Citation ...
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Desolation Island (novel)
''Desolation Island'' is the fifth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. It was first published in 1978. Jack Aubrey is in funds from his successful mission to take the islands of Mauritius and Reunion. His house has additions, but he is ready for another voyage. The story includes a voyage meant to reach Australia, and occurs prior to the War of 1812. Critics have praised the novel's “literate, clear-eyed realism” at initial publication, and stirring naval action in the cold southern ocean in the chase of the Dutch ship, 20 years after initial publication at the re-issue. Plot summary Jack Aubrey, having recovered financially in ''The Mauritius Command'', expands his house, pays off his mother-in-law's debts, and his wife is no longer pinching pennies. His household is staffed with seamen, and his daughters and son are thriving. After serving in the Fencibles office for a while, Aubrey starts getting into difficulties both in cards and at bu ...
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George Heneage Lawrence Dundas
George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States * George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States * George V, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1910-1936 * George VI, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1936-1952 * Prince George of Wales * George Papagheorghe also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorgio Moroder * George Harrison, an English musician and singer-songwriter Places South Africa * George, Western Cape ** George Airport United States * George, Iowa * George, Missouri * George, Washington * George County, Mississippi * George Air Force Base, a former U.S. Air Force base located in California Characters * George (Peppa Pig), a 2-year-old pig ...
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William Mitchell (Royal Navy Officer)
Vice-Admiral Sir William Mitchell, KCB (c. 1745 – 7 March 1816) was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Mitchell is best known for rising from humble origins to high rank, having joined the Navy in 1766 as an able seaman and died in 1816 as a vice-admiral. His service was highly varied, including a circumnavigation of the world, command of a ship at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797 and a period as Sir James Saumarez's flag captain. He was also rumoured to have once been flogged round the fleet for desertion, although no firm evidence of this has been discovered. Life Nothing is known of William Mitchell's birth, youth or childhood, other than that he must have been born in either 1745 or 1746 as his age at his death was reported to be 70. The first time that he appears in the historical record is in 1766, when he joined the Royal Navy ship under Captain Samuel Wallis. As he was already rated as an able seaman, it is l ...
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Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood
Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood (26 September 1748 – 7 March 1810) was an admiral of the Royal Navy, notable as a partner with Lord Nelson in several of the British victories of the Napoleonic Wars, and frequently as Nelson's successor in commands. Early years Collingwood was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. His early education was at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle. At the age of 12, he went to sea as a volunteer on board the sixth-rate under the command of his cousin Captain Richard Brathwaite (or Braithwaite), who took charge of his nautical education. After several years of service under Brathwaite and a short period attached to , a guardship at Portsmouth commanded by Captain Robert Roddam, Collingwood sailed to Boston in 1774 with Admiral Samuel Graves on board , where he fought in the British naval brigade at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, and was afterwards commissioned as a lieutenant on 17 June. In 1777, Collingwood met Horatio N ...
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Master And Commander
''Master and Commander'' is a 1969 nautical historical novel by the English author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1969 in the US and 1970 in the UK. The book proved to be the start of the 20-novel Aubrey–Maturin series, set largely in the era of the Napoleonic Wars, on which O'Brian continued working until his death in 2000. The novel is set at the turn of the 19th century. It follows the young Jack Aubrey, a Royal Navy captain who has just been promoted to the rank of Master and Commander, and Stephen Maturin, a destitute physician and naturalist whom Aubrey appoints as his naval surgeon. They sail in HM sloop-of-war ''Sophie'' with first lieutenant James Dillon, a wealthy and aristocratic Irishman. The naval action in the Mediterranean is closely based on the real-life exploits of Lord Cochrane, including a battle modelled after Cochrane's spectacular victory in the brig HMS ''Speedy'' over the vastly superior Spanish frigate '' El Gamo''. ''Master and Commander'' ...
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Diana Villiers
Diana Villiers is a fictional character in the Aubrey-Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. Described as beautiful, mercurial, and entirely unreliable, she is the great love and great sorrow of Stephen Maturin's life. Character history Diana enters the series in the second novel of the series, ''Post Captain'', which begins with Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin living ashore during the Peace of Amiens. They first see her in a fox hunting field near their leased country house, and are impressed by her beauty and bold spirit. In ''Post Captain'', Diana is living with the Williams family, as a poor relation. Previously a resident of India, where her father was a general and her husband was an official of the East India Company, she returned to England after both men were killed in the same battle with the forces of Tippoo Sahib. Both Aubrey and Maturin are intrigued by the fiery Villiers, although Aubrey also forms a conflicted attachment to her more plac ...
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Stephen Maturin
Stephen Maturin () is a fictional character in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The series portrays his career as a physician, naturalist and spy in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and the long pursuit of his beloved Diana Villiers. Maturin was played by Paul Bettany in the 2003 film '' Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World'' and by Richard Dillane in the BBC Radio 4 adaptations of O'Brian's novels. Bettany was nominated for a British Academy Film Award for his performance. Biography Early life Stephen Maturin, called by his Catalan family Esteban Maturin y Domanova, a Roman Catholic, is the illegitimate son of an Irish officer serving in the Spanish Army and a Catalonian lady. He is cousin to the historical Lord Edward FitzGerald. As a boy he lived in Ireland, fostered by a family of pig-herders in Cahirciveen and County Clare, and spent his teenage years in Catalonia – most notably with his grandmother in Lleida, his uncle in ...
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Jack Aubrey
John "Jack" Aubrey , is a fictional character in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The series portrays his rise from lieutenant to rear admiral in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The twenty (and one incomplete draft)-book series encompasses Aubrey's adventures and various commands along his course to flying a rear admiral's flag. Some of his naval battles and adventures are drawn from Royal Navy history. Several of his exploits and reverses, most importantly those in the plots of ''Master and Commander'', ''The Reverse of the Medal'' and ''Blue at the Mizzen'', are directly based on the chequered career of Thomas Cochrane. Often in the other 17 novels in the series, Aubrey may witness an action or hear of one that is drawn from history, while the battles or other encounters with ships he captains are fictional. Besides reaching the peak of naval skills and authority, Aubrey is presented as being interested in mathematics and astronomy, a gr ...
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