The Golden Ocean is a 1956 historical novel by Patrick O'Brian. It tells the story of a novice midshipman, Peter Palafox, who joins George Anson's voyage around the world beginning in 1740. Palafox is a Protestant Irish boy from the west coast of Ireland, schooled by his father, a churchman, and eager to join the Royal Navy. He learns naval discipline and how to determine his ship's position at sea as part of a large berth of midshipmen on HMS Centurion. His friend Sean O'Mara joins with him, considered his servant initially by officers and put among the seamen, rising in rank as he shows his abilities, to bosun's mate.

The book contains a wealth of period detail, and includes historical figures, like Anson, the midshipman Keppel, Mr Walter, the chaplain to Anson and kind guide and keeper of the purse for Peter Palafox, and captains of other vessels in the squadron.

Reviews in 1994 found it not a mature work

Kirkus Reviews finds this novel "Not a mature piece of work, but appealing enough to satisfy fans of O'Brian's naval sagas."

Tom Clark writing in the Los Angeles Times says that "evidently in keeping with an aim of appealing to a younger audience, the darker aspects of the crew's experience are played down in favor of a robust and exhilarating rendering of the great adventure of it all." It is a first sea novel with a young boy as the main character, but "if there's any character in The Golden Ocean with heavyweight potential, it's the sea itself, whose power as a kind of fate is rendered with the Conradian force that shows where O'Brian was headed as a narrative writer." Clark notes that "At least two of those accounts, those of Anson's chaplain, Richard Walter, and of a young Irish midshipman, John Philips, appear to have supplied O'Brian much of what he needed to paint with charming pictorial realism the life both above and below decks on Anson's flagship Centurion."

Library Journal noted that this book by O'Brian "set the course they [Aubrey-Maturin series] later followed." It is recommended for all ages: "A humorous adventure for all collections."

Scott Veale writing in The New York Times was upbeat about this novel, saying that "As always, the author's erudition and humor are on display, whether he's describing the singing of the masts in the wind, the harrowing seas of Cape Horn or 18th-century superstitions." Veale found the period detail to be "uncompromising", and expected that readers "will be swept up by the richness of O'Brian's prodigious imagination."

Background

The same expedition is described from the perspective of two on one of the ships in the squadron that did not make it around the globe in O'Brian's The Unknown Shore. It focusses on the ship HMS Wager and different main characters, including John Byron, then a midshipman, age 18. Mr Walter the chaplain wrote his own account of the voyage of Anson, noted by Clark (above) as one of O'Brian's historical sources for this novel and the interactions among the officers and crew. An original copy was at auction in 2009.

In 1969, O'Brian published Master and Commander, the first book in a 20 novel series, known as the Aubrey-Maturin series.

Allusions to history and real places

The story is based on a real event, George Anson's voyage around the world that began in 1740. Places named in Ireland, England, Madeira, the Pacific coast of South America, Manila, Macau and Canton in China are real, including St. Catherine's Island off Brazil at 24 degrees South latitude, shown on the map opening this book by H W Household.

A map of the world with George Anson’s real four year voyage around the world 1740 to 1744 makes clear the impressive achievement under his direction.

thumb|left|350px|Path of the Centurion under the command of George Anson, with place names of that era

The Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Covadonga, after the battle, was sold at Macau and the treasure transferred to Centurion, which proceeded to England after a brief rest, arriving there in June 1744.

Publication history

Rupert Hart-Davis published many of O'Brian's works, including translations (e.g., Papillon and Banco: The Further Advancement of Papillon in 1970 and 1973), The Road to Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore and short stories from 1953 to 1974. In 1994, The Golden Ocean was re-issued by HarperCollins in the UK and W W Norton in the US.

References

  • Model of HMS Centurion

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