Aubrey–Maturin series Times" Best Seller list. These novels comprise the heart of the canon of an author often compared to Jane Austen, C. S. Forester and other British authors central to the English literature canon. The 2003 film "" took material from books in this series, notably "Master and Commander", "HMS Surprise", "The Letter of Marque", "The Fortune of War", and particularly "The Far Side of the World". Russell Crowe played the role of Jack Aubrey, and Paul Bettany that of Stephen Maturin. Patrick O'Brian's "The Golden Ocean" (1956) and "The Unknown Shore" (1959) both depict fictional pairs of young men, loosely
The Far Side of the World Recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series" This novel references actual events with accurate historical detail, like all in this series. In respect to the internal chronology of the series, it is the fourth of eleven novels (beginning with "The Surgeon's Mate") that might take five or six years to happen but are all pegged to an extended 1812, or as Patrick O'Brian says it, 1812a and 1812b (in the Author's Note for "The Far Side of the World", the tenth novel in this series). The events of "The Yellow Admiral" again match up with the historical years of the Napoleonic