The Wine-Dark Sea

The Wine-Dark Sea is the sixteenth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1993. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. This novel constitutes the fourth of a five-novel circumnavigation of the globe; other novels in this voyage include The Thirteen Gun Salute, The Nutmeg of Consolation, Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove, and The Commodore. The chase of the Franklin brings the Surprise to Peru and the undercover mission so long delayed. Aubrey navigates through an undersea volcanic eruption, which decides him as winner of the chase. Captain Aubrey's illegitimate son, Father Panda, provides crucial help to Maturin in Lima and for his long walk along the Andes Mountains to meet the Surprise. Aubrey is unable to beat to windward during a hard blow while trying to reach Maturin to warn him of Dutourd's escape and is nearly starved. This novel received enthusiastic positive reviews on its release. The writing is "literate, leisurely, and as charming as the rest of the series" while the story is "a real hair-raiser". Another review noted reading the novel "induces a rueful awe at the depth and intensity of the author's determination to make his characters authentic creatures of their time", and praises the "nuanced handling of everyone's political and religious beliefs and how these relate to the war they are fighting." The plot and the writing style were praised: "The naval actions are bang-on and bang-up--fast, furious and bloody--and the Andean milieu is as vivid as the shipboard scenes." It is this novel that elicited the observation that "The best way to think of these novels is as a single 5,000-page book." The battles are intense and the storms riveting, but it is the "meticulously recorded mundane moments of the story (and of the sea journey) that bring the novel to full life." Another reviewer quotes some of the dialogue between Aubrey and Maturin, and remarks that the "painstakingly researched details about 19th-Century life aboard ship, that elevates his tales into heady escapism. O'Brian won the Heywood Hill Literary Prize, with a cash award, for his writing and for this novel in 1995.