The Wine-Dark Sea cover art

The Wine-Dark Sea

Aubrey-Maturin Series, Book 16

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

The Wine-Dark Sea

By: Patrick O'Brian
Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £14.92

Buy Now for £14.92

About this listen

At the opening of a voyage filled with disaster and delight, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are in pursuit of a privateer sailing under American colours through the Great South Sea. Stephen's objective is to set the revolutionary tinder of South America ablaze to relieve the pressure on the British government which has blundered into war with the young and uncomfortably vigorous United States. The shock and barbarity of hand-to-hand fighting are sharpened by O'Brian's exact sense of period, his eye for landscape and his feel for a ship under sail.

©1993 The Estate of the late Patrick O'Brian CBE (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Historical Fiction Fiction Sailing Pirate
All stars
Most relevant
Rounds off a very long voyage perfectly. Has it all from the Peruvian mountains to the cape

My favourite so far

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I will soon run out of these wonderful tales - I ration them, in order to find times when I can devote hours of happy immersion - and then it’s finished, and I’m bereft! I know I can listen again, and probably will to the earlier ones as I’ve tended to hear them all out of order. I’m not sure why they are so perfect - even when a bit long-winded - Ric Jerram certainly makes them sing. But it is the meticulous research, the detail, never an anachronism, nothing out of place- smooth running, like the ‘Surprise’ herself. Plus the stories, intrigue, anguish, wonderful descriptions of wildlife and landscapes seen only from a late 18th-century perspective- so - nothing held back either, authentic to the end.

Brilliant as always

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not as good as some of his first books, the wine dark sea gets a bit predictable , though there is everything the we have come to expect: battles at sea, naturalising, intelligence, trips to distant lands etc.
Jerrom's interpretation adds immensely as always.

An older Aubrey and Maturin

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A good book with lots of travel interest as well as the normal Naval content. The battle in the ice was excellent.

Wine Dark Sea

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love this series of books and have read them all more than once, and Ric Jerrom's excellent narration really enhances this one.

Wonderful combination of story and reader

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews