‘Narrative addicts all have writers to whom they return regularly to cheer or console themselves. Mine are Georgette Heyer, C.S. Forester, Margery Allingham and Dick Francis. I have just discovered another, Patrick O’Brian, and he is in many ways better and more satisfying than any of them.’ A.S. BYATT, EVENING STANDARD

‘Young writers ought, before lurching into print, to be obliged to learn by heart at least one of Patrick O’Brian’s short stories . . . O’Brian writes like a man to whom writing comes as easily as breathing: precisely, fluently, economically . . . perfect cadences.’ JANE SHILLING, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

‘A Kafka in the countryside . . . O’Brian’s accounts of travelling have the clarity of the best descriptive writing . . . The astonishing achievement of these short stories is not just the author’s truth to the landscape, but his pitiless vision of the disintegration of personality when a living creature is struggling in a hostile world.’ ANTHONY EVERITT, COUNTRY LIFE

‘He is more than a merely popular writer. He is a very, very fine one.’ CHARLTON HESTON, DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘It is his ability to develop character, his delightful humour, and the emotion he can evoke, which keep the reader entranced’ TIMOTHY MO, SPECTATOR

‘The greatest historical novelist of all time.’ THE TIMES

‘There are two types of people in the world: Patrick O’Brian fans, and people who haven’t read him yet.’ LUCY EYRE, GUARDIAN