Dr. Stephen Maturin Archive

The Real Stephen Maturin?

It’s no secret that POB drew inspiration from history for many of the characters and plots that make our beloved series so amazing. Jack Aubrey, for example, is pretty clearly inspired by Thomas Cochrane, and that’s just the easiest one to spot. But Stephen Maturin is such a quirky character, it’s hard to imagine any [...]
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Eyewitness Accounts of the Hamilton/Burr Duel

Throughout the course of our beloved series, Stephen fights several duels and almost fights several more. He is by no means abnormal for his time; gentlemen of his era often felt the only way to defend their honor was to shoot someone over it. One of the most famous historical duels was that between Alexander [...]
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The 1778 Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen and its Present-Day Implications

This article is somewhat different from what is usually posted here. It’s a political piece discussing current events, but it definitely relates back to our era and our areas of focus. Full disclosure: I’m of a liberal bent, and I think the following article makes a lot of sense. But I’m not posting it to [...]
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The Hidden Hand: Espionage and Napoleon

*SPOILERS*
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Surgeons At Sea: Logs from the Age of Sail

The National Archives has opened up and made accessible over 1,000 Royal Navy Medical Officer Journals, just like the ones Stephen keeps on his travels with Jack. Some of them have been digitized and can be downloaded free of charge. Unfortunately, none of them contain any sketches (others in the collection apparently do, but most of [...]
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Law and Morality in Patrick O’Brian’s Post Captain

One of the things that makes our beloved series so, um, belovable, is the incredible density of the details packed into it. There’s more in every book than just an enjoyable adventure. Within each book one can find discourses on nature (both animal and human), medicine, science, politics, technology… Every aspect of Napoleonic Era life [...]
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Stephen Maturin: This Article’s Title Is A Spoiler

*SPOILERS*
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Stephen Maturin, the Sea-Going Scientist

The Aubrey/Maturin series is not about science. If it’s about anything, it’s about the close friendship between two very different men as they journey around the world. Or it’s about killing the French, either way. The scientific aspect of the series is often overlooked but, as scientist Stephen Curry would like to remind us, “in [...]
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Any Friend of Stephen’s is a Friend of Mine: Guillaume Dupuytren

Throughout the course of our beloved series, a few allusions are made to Stephen’s past studying medicine in Paris. He “dissected with Dupuytren”, apparently, but what on earth does that mean? Was he a mentor of Stephen’s? As it turns out, our dear Maturin and Dupuytren would more accurately be described as contemporaries. Dupuytren had [...]
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Patrick O’Brian’s Take on Music at Sea in Aubrey’s Royal Navy

As anyone who’s read even the first sentence of our beloved series knows, music plays an important part throughout. In a way, it’s the only thing our two protagonists have in common, the thing that unites them and the foundation of their friendship. Therefore it is unsurprising that the man responsible for the creation of [...]
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