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
Jack Aubrey from actual Royal Navy history. Several of his exploits and reverses, most importantly those in the plots of "Master and Commander", "The Reverse of the Medal" and "Blue at the Mizzen", are directly based on the chequered career of Thomas Cochrane: as his friend the botanist and surgeon Stephen Maturin mused, "There was something of Cochrane in Jack, a restless impatience of authority, a strong persuasion of being in the right." During the series of novels, Jack Aubrey commands a succession of many different vessels. Most of them are ships of the Royal Navy, prefixed HMS (His Majesty's Ship). On