Talk:The Ionian Mission

Currently tidying up the plot summary and adding in characters and ships mentioned in the book. Ivankinsman (talk) 08:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Fictional vs Real ships
Note (need to check this) - we've linked to HMS Worcester 1769, a historical 64, but IIRC the Worcester in the book was one of the "forty thieves" a Vengeur class 74 and thus a fictional ship. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 09:53, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * We have also linked to HMS Surprise (1796) which was sold out of the Navy in 1802 and Aubrey could never have served aboard her as a young midshipman unless he had been in the French Navy. Personally I would not link to either of them but it needs to be discussed here and then followed through with all the other A-M articles. Dabbler (talk) 11:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Cover art by Geoff Hunt -- all for one publisher?
There is a collection of images of cover art for all the Aubrey Maturin series books, by Geoff Hunt (marine artist), on line at one of The Gunroom web pages. Some of the later novels have his work as the first edition covers included in the info box book. For earlier novels, if anyone knows the publisher who used the cover, perhaps it could be included elsewhere in the article. This is common in articles about novels where one cover was issued in the UK and another in the US. Just an idea, if anyone knows the publisher and year of publication for the earlier novels, like this one. I listen to audio books, so I do not always see the lovely cover art. --Prairieplant (talk) 00:44, 29 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Geoff Hunt was the cover artist of all the first editions in the UK (Collins/HarperCollins) and Norton in the US (sometimes cropped differently)following The Letter of Marque. He was also commissioned to provide covers for new editions of the earlier books. Dabbler (talk) 19:11, 29 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks! For those covers for new editions of the earlier books, that is, not first edition covers, did both Collins/HarperCollins and Norton use the Geoff Hunt covers? For the 11 earlier novels, was it Norton or HarperCollins, or both, who used his cover in editions printed after 1988? I think the answer is both, based on The Gunroom page (http://www.hmssurprise.org/harpercollins-covers-geoff-hunt ). The Fantastic Fiction pages show a variety of covers for the editions it lists, and probably is not a definitive source of information on covers. The Kindle editions from HarperCollins/Collins and Norton usually show the same Geoff Hunt cover on Fantastic Fiction. If small images suitable for Wikipedia are located, perhaps the caption can be, Geoff Hunt cover for later editions by WW Norton and HarperCollins. I am not so good at finding the fair use images, but others might be, if this is agreed, to add the Geoff Hunt cover as a second image in the articles about the first 11 novels. Per Geoff Hunt (marine artist), he began doing covers in 1988, which is when The Letter of Marque was published, and Hunt is listed as artist for the cover of the first edition in the Wikipedia article, and for all the novels following it, so it is good to know that both publishers used that cover art from 1988 onward. --Prairieplant (talk) 00:14, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Both HarperCollins and Norton used the same Hunt paintings for their covers for all the novels (apart from some film related paperback covers), but the design layout was sometimes different so that they did not always look identical. Norton was not the original publisher in the US whereas Collins-HarperCollins was always POB's publisher throughout the rest of the world. I don't know of any definitive site where you could find images of any size for all the covers. Dabbler (talk) 11:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)