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HMS Surprise is the 1973 historical naval novel by Patrick O'Brian. It is third in the series of stories of Captain Jack Aubrey and the naval surgeon Stephen Maturin.

Plot summary
Aubrey takes command of the frigate HMS Surprise, charged with carrying a British ambassador to the East Indies. Much of the novel deals with the ups and downs of Maturin's relationship with Diana Villiers. Jack's romance with Sophie Williams also progresses.

This book also describes Aubrey's first stint in command of, and provides the readers' first encounter with the Surprise herself. Although apparently based on the real Royal Navy frigate HMS Surprise, she appears as a ship on which Aubrey had served as a youth. (His initials remain carved in the mast.) The real HMS Surprise, however, entered the Royal Navy as a prize captured from the French in 1796, so that O'Brian would seem to have added some fifteen years to her age, taking her capture (which he mentions) back to the previous phase of Anglo-French hostilities which formed part of the war of American independence (1776-1783).

The Surprise becomes Aubrey's favourite ship, and appears in many other novels in the series.

On the return voyage the Surprise encounters a fleet of the East India Company, returning from China laden with goods. The fleet comes under attack from a French squadron, but Aubrey organizes a spirited defence from the merchant ships and bluffs the French into retreating. This episode reflects elements of the Battle of Pulo Aura on 15 February 1804, in which 16 merchant ships of the East India Company under the command of Commodore Nathaniel Dance, drove off a French squadron consisting of the Marengo (74 guns), Belle-Poule (40), Sémillante (36), Berceau (22) and Aventurier (16), commanded by Rear-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois. (Another fictional account of this incident appears in Newton Forster; or, the Merchant Service by Captain Frederick Marryat.)

Characters in "HMS Surprise"

 * Jack Aubrey - Leutenant in the Royal Navy and appointed Captain of HMS Surprise.
 * Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, friend to Jack and intelligence officer.
 * Sophie Williams - Jack's love interest
 * Mrs. Williams - Sophie mother
 * Diana Villiers - Stephen's love interest
 * Tom Pullings – master's mate in Lively
 * William Mowett – master's mate in Lively
 * William Babbington – midshipman in Lively
 * James Dillon – first lieutenant in Lively

The British

 * HMS Surprise - frigate

The Spanish

 * &#42; n.b. were real ships during the period depicted.

Literary significance & criticism

 * "His books can absorb and enthral landlubbers like myself who do not even know the difference between a jib-boom and a taffrail."

Release details

 * 1973, UK, Collins (ISBN 0002213168), Pub Date ? ? 1973, hardback (First edition)
 * 1973, USA, Lippincott (ISBN ???), Pub date ? ? 1973, hardback (1st American edition)

Editions

 * W. W. Norton & Company; Hardcover Reprint edition (1994) (ISBN 0393037037)
 * Thorndike Press; Largeprint hardcover edition (2000) (ISBN 0786219343)
 * Harper Collins; reprint paperback edition (2002) (ISBN 0006499171)
 * Blackstone Audiobooks; Unabridged Audio CD edition (2004) (ISBN 078618597X)
 * Fontana; Paperback edition (1976) (ISBN 0006141811)
 * Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull