In his Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O’Brian wrote of HMS Surprise, a small British frigate, originally captured from the French. Over several books, the Surprise became almost as beloved a character, in her own way, as Jack Aubrey and Doctor Maturin themselves.

Independent of her qualities in fiction, HMS Surprise was indeed a real ship upon which O’Brian based the ship in his novels. Now, Brian Lavery, the noted naval historian and author of more than twenty books on the Royal Navy, and Geoff Hunt, the president Royal Society of Marine Artists and the painter of many of the covers in the Aubrey Maturin series, have written The Frigate Surprise: The Complete Story of the Ship Made Famous in the Novels of Patrick O’Brian.

What makes the book so interesting is that it brings into sharp focus the differences between the ship of history and that represented in O’Brian’s novels. Equally fascinating is that the book also helps to contrast the Royal Navy of history with the often romanticized versions of fiction. It is an intriguing tale and it is hard to image two better qualified storytellers than Lavery and Hunt.

The Frigate Surprise is organized in four parts. The first – an account of the HMS Surprise of history is the longest section of the book. Roughly halfway through, this account is judiciously interrupted by a chapter describing what it would have been like to tour the Surprise, followed by a chapter of wonderful drawings of the Surprise by Karl Heintz Marquardt. Once the reader is firmly grounded in the geography of the ship, the book continues with the second half of its career.

There is a slim chapter titled, “Jack Aubrey’s Surprise” which summarizes the entire Aubrey/Maturin series for that most unlikely reader who may have purchased the book without having been familiar with the O’Brian novels.

The final chapter of the book is almost the most intriguing because it is so very different from the nine chapters that precede it. So far Brian Lavery appears to be providing the narrative supported by prints of Geoff Hunt paintings and other paintings from the period. In the last chapter, however, the artist is given a voice. Geoff Hunt describes his research in preparation for painting the Surprise, including the hull, the rigging, fittings and color schemes. He then describes composing the many covers that he painted for the series, starting with his sketches and studies and ending with the finished works. Fascinating stuff.

For any lover of the work of Patrick O’Brian, The Frigate Surprise is a wonderful book. The Frigate Surprise says less about the world created by Patrick O’Brian than it does about the real world of the Royal Navy from which O’Brian’s world was drawn, but that is not a bad thing either.