PATRICK O’BRIAN
A Very Private Life
Nikolai Tolstoy
Copyright CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Preface I Collioure and Three Bear Witness II The Catalans III New Home and New Family IV Voyages of Adventure V In the Doldrums VI A Family Man VII Master and Commander VIII The Green Isle Calls IX Pablo Ruiz Picasso X Shifting Currents XI Muddied Waters XII Travails of Existence XIII Family Travails XIV The Sunlit Uplands XV Epinician Acclaims XVI Triumph and Tragedy XVII Melmoth the Wanderer Envoi Appendix A: Collioure: History and Landscape Appendix B: Patrick and His First Wife Elizabeth Appendix C: Patrick’s Sailing Footnotes Notes Index Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Nikolai Tolstoy About the Publisher
William Collins
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019
Copyright © Nikolai Tolstoy 2019
Cover design by Heike Schüssler
Cover photograph © Steve Pyke / Getty Images
Nikolai Tolstoy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All photographs courtesy of the author
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008350581
Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008350604
Version: 2019-09-30
Dedication CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Preface I Collioure and Three Bear Witness II The Catalans III New Home and New Family IV Voyages of Adventure V In the Doldrums VI A Family Man VII Master and Commander VIII The Green Isle Calls IX Pablo Ruiz Picasso X Shifting Currents XI Muddied Waters XII Travails of Existence XIII Family Travails XIV The Sunlit Uplands XV Epinician Acclaims XVI Triumph and Tragedy XVII Melmoth the Wanderer Envoi Appendix A: Collioure: History and Landscape Appendix B: Patrick and His First Wife Elizabeth Appendix C: Patrick’s Sailing Footnotes Notes Index Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Nikolai Tolstoy About the Publisher
I dedicate this book to my late cousin Adrian Slack and his sister Julia, the dearest of friends as well as closest of relatives since those distant days of childhood at Appledore beside the Severn Sea.
At home in the cloister of Correch d’en Baus
Epigraph CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Preface I Collioure and Three Bear Witness II The Catalans III New Home and New Family IV Voyages of Adventure V In the Doldrums VI A Family Man VII Master and Commander VIII The Green Isle Calls IX Pablo Ruiz Picasso X Shifting Currents XI Muddied Waters XII Travails of Existence XIII Family Travails XIV The Sunlit Uplands XV Epinician Acclaims XVI Triumph and Tragedy XVII Melmoth the Wanderer Envoi Appendix A: Collioure: History and Landscape Appendix B: Patrick and His First Wife Elizabeth Appendix C: Patrick’s Sailing Footnotes Notes Index Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Nikolai Tolstoy About the Publisher
Indeed I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man’s life, than not only relating all the most important events of it in their order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and said, and thought; by which mankind are enabled as it were to see him live, and to ‘live o’er each scene’ with him, as he actually advanced through the several stages of his life .
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (London, 1793), i, p. 6
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page PATRICK O’BRIAN A Very Private Life Nikolai Tolstoy
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
I Collioure and Three Bear Witness
II The Catalans
III New Home and New Family
IV Voyages of Adventure
V In the Doldrums
VI A Family Man
VII Master and Commander
VIII The Green Isle Calls
IX Pablo Ruiz Picasso
X Shifting Currents
XI Muddied Waters
XII Travails of Existence
XIII Family Travails
XIV The Sunlit Uplands
XV Epinician Acclaims
XVI Triumph and Tragedy
XVII Melmoth the Wanderer
Envoi
Appendix A: Collioure: History and Landscape
Appendix B: Patrick and His First Wife Elizabeth
Appendix C: Patrick’s Sailing
Footnotes
Notes
Index
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Nikolai Tolstoy
About the Publisher
Preface CONTENTS Cover Title Page PATRICK O’BRIAN A Very Private Life Nikolai Tolstoy Copyright Dedication Epigraph Preface I Collioure and Three Bear Witness II The Catalans III New Home and New Family IV Voyages of Adventure V In the Doldrums VI A Family Man VII Master and Commander VIII The Green Isle Calls IX Pablo Ruiz Picasso X Shifting Currents XI Muddied Waters XII Travails of Existence XIII Family Travails XIV The Sunlit Uplands XV Epinician Acclaims XVI Triumph and Tragedy XVII Melmoth the Wanderer Envoi Appendix A: Collioure: History and Landscape Appendix B: Patrick and His First Wife Elizabeth Appendix C: Patrick’s Sailing Footnotes Notes Index Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Nikolai Tolstoy About the Publisher
A fortnight after Patrick O’Brian’s death, the playwright David Mamet wrote of his literary achievement:
Recently I put down O’Brian’s sea novel ‘The Ionian Mission’ and said to my wife, ‘This fellow has created characters and stories that are part of my life.’
She said: ‘Write him a letter. He’s in his 80s. Write him and thank him. And when you are in England, look him up, go tell him.
‘How wonderful,’ she said, ‘to be alive, when he is still alive. Imagine living in the 1890s and being able to converse with Conan Doyle.’
Mamet promptly rehearsed the eulogium with which he would address his literary hero, and began preparing a letter of introduction at his breakfast table. Then, glancing at the newspaper beside him, he saw to his dismay an announcement of the melancholy news of Patrick’s death. [1] Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
I have no doubt that Patrick would have been delighted by such praise from his acclaimed fellow writer, and that had my mother still been alive she would have inserted the letter in her box-file ‘Valuable Fans and very good reviews’. My hope is that, while nothing can quite replace a face-to-face conversation, this book may compensate by enabling Mamet and others of Patrick’s worldwide legion of admirers to learn much more of his life and personality than might have been obtained from any interview with the famously reclusive writer.
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