Patrick O'Brian

Patrick O'Brian was an English novelist and translator, best known for the Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The series, which runs to twenty novels beginning with Master and Commander, follows the friendship of the naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish-Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. Before his major success came late in life, O'Brian wrote other novels and short stories, translated French works into English, and wrote biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He died in 2000.