Clarissa Oakes (titled The Truelove in the United States) is the fifteenth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1992. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.

This novel constitutes the third of a five-novel circumnavigation of the globe; other novels in this voyage include The Thirteen Gun Salute, The Nutmeg of Consolation, The Wine-Dark Sea, and The Commodore.

Glad that the penal colony is behind him, Captain Aubrey discovers a stowaway prisoner aboard near Norfolk Island. He deals with her before he allows the cutter from the governor at New South Wales to deliver his new orders to handle a political situation on a Pacific island. En route, Maturin learns the key to finding the high level agent giving British information to the French, while Aubrey addresses the unhappy crew of Surprise.

One reviewer finds this novel a pure joy to read as it shares unmistakably original insights into the mysteries of the world. "His books add up to a portrait of an entire world, containing every single aspect of human life."

Anthony Bailey, writing in The New York Times, finds that this novel puts the reader "on board the Surprise in the South Pacific in the early 19th century amid a swirl of nautical detail, unalloyed, unapologetic and absolutely right." in a novel written by "one of the best storytellers afloat". He suggests that with his first novel in this series, O'Brian may have been competing with C. S. Forester, but "At this point, he is in a different squadron altogether, providing pleasure for those who will never be able to read a new Captain Marryat (the author, in the 1830s and 1840s, of a number of sea adventures) – but in this instance a Marryat with a touch of Jane Austen, Erskine Childers and John le Carré thrown in."

Publishers Weekly feels this novel "will delight fans, while offering newcomers a good place to jump in."

Allusion to real places

The plot takes the ship to a fictional island south of the Hawaiian Islands, which were first known as the Sandwich Islands.

Publication history

  • Recorded Books LLC Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull
  • W. W. Norton & Company E-book edition 2011

References

  • Clarissa Oakes (The Truelove) at the Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project