The Reverse of the Medal is the eleventh historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1986. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.

Returning from the far side of the world, Aubrey meets his unknown son, and proceeds home to England, where he is embroiled in the most difficult challenge of his career, and all on dry land. Maturin is his close and valuable friend at every hard reverse.

This novel was read by Starling Lawrence of American publisher W. W. Norton & Company in 1989.

Allusion to real events and persons

O'Brian bases the story of the stock exchange fraud and many of the details of Captain Aubrey's trial on the experiences of Thomas Cochrane, Lord Cochrane. In the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814, Lord Cochrane was tried before Lord Ellenborough at the Guildhall and similarly convicted. Lord Cochrane was sentenced to prison, the pillory and fined £1,000. The pillory portion of Cochrane's sentence was rescinded, for fear of a public backlash.

By contrast, in the novel, the pillory sentence is carried out, but there is no prison time, so that Aubrey will be free to be a privateer, captain of a letter of marque, in a mission that government wants Maturin to carry out. The pillory scene is an opportunity for the seamen, including officers, to show their support of Aubrey, protecting him from Wray's never-ending wrath.

According to O'Brian's Author's Note, Lord Cochrane and his defendants always passionately maintained that he was not guilty and that Lord Ellenborough's conduct of the trial was grossly unfair. Lord Ellenborough and his descendants, however, took the opposite view. One of Lord Ellenborough's descendants (not named in the Author's Note) wrote again about the trial, asking a Mr Attlay (sic) of Lincoln's Inn to address the legal issues. The title or year of the book is not mentioned in the Author's Note, but is the source to which Patrick O'Brian referred for describing "the structure and the curious timetable" of the original trial, for Jack Aubrey's trial in the novel. The book and author are "The trial of Lord Cochrane before Lord Ellenborough" by J.B. Atlay, London 1897.

Anthony G. Brown, in Persons, Animals, Ships, and Cannon in the Aubrey-Maturin Sea Novels of Patrick O'Brien (1999) speculates that the prosecutor at Aubrey's trial may be based on his namesake, solicitor and under-sheriff , author of A Treatise on the Abuses of the Laws (1814).

Adaptations

In July 2009, Russell Crowe told the Associated Press that this book would make up the bulk of a second Master and Commander film. , no second film has been produced. At the time of Crowe's comment, there was no word on a director or cast.

Publication history

  • 1986 UK William Collins & Co hardback
  • 1992 July USA W W Norton, paperback, / 9780393309607
  • 1994 November USA W W Norton, hardback, / 9780393037111
  • 2011 5 December USA W W Norton & Company ) e-book edition

The paperback reissue by W W Norton in the USA in 1992 marked a resurgence in interest in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. Starling Lawrence of that publishing house discovered the novels in 1989, and proceeded to reissue all earlier novels, and then publish following novels in the US when HarperCollins published in the UK. Norton issued The Reverse of the Medal six years after its initial publication, as a paperback in 1992. Ironically, it was a US publisher, J. B. Lippincott & Co., who asked O'Brian to write the first book in the series, Master and Commander published in 1969. Collins picked it up in the UK, and continued to publish each novel as O'Brian completed another story. Beginning with The Nutmeg of Consolation in 1991, the novels were released at about the same time in the USA (by W W Norton) and the UK (by HarperCollins, the name of Collins after a merger).

Novels prior to 1992 were published rapidly in the US for that new market. Following novels were released at the same time by the UK and US publishers. Collins asked Geoff Hunt in 1988 to do the cover art for the twelve books published by then, with The Letter of Marque being the first book to have Hunt's work on the first edition. He continued to paint the covers for future books; the covers were used on both USA and UK editions. Reissues of earlier novels used the Geoff Hunt covers.

References

  • The Reverse of the Medal in the Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project

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