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Post Captain (novel)

Post Captain is the second historical novel in the Aubrey–Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1972. It features the characters of Captain Jack Aubrey and naval surgeon Stephen Maturin, and is set in the early 19th century during the Napoleonic Wars.

During the brief Peace of Amiens, Aubrey and Maturin live in a country house in England, where they meet women with whom they fall in love. The mores of courtship restrict both men as to making marriage proposals. Then their lives are turned upside down when Aubrey loses his money due to decisions of the prize court and a dishonest prize-agent. To avoid seizure for debt, they proceed through France to Maturin's property in Spain. When the war begins afresh, Aubrey has a command aboard HMS Polychrest, gaining fewer prizes yet succeeding in his military goals. He is eventually promoted and is given temporary command of the frigate HMS Lively while its captain is ashore. The emotions of his love life interfere with his ways at sea, showing him sharply different in his decisiveness at sea compared to his clumsiness on land.

The novel was received well at its initial publishing, but received more and better notice after its re-issue in 1990. That much of the story is set on land drew some to consider it O'Brian's homage to Jane Austen, one of his favorite authors. Author Mary Renault gave the novel high praise, while Alison Sulentic commended it for the two different ways that Maturin and Aubrey "come to know wisdom" as a result of falling in love.

Plot summary
With the Peace of Amiens, Jack Aubrey returns to England and rents a house with Stephen Maturin, with shipmates running the household, and the friends spending their time fox hunting. They meet the Williams family, who live on a neighboring estate. Aubrey courts Sophia Williams, the eldest of three daughters, while Maturin pursues Diana Villiers, Sophia's cousin. Jack wants to marry Sophia, but they delay making a firm engagement. His fortune suddenly disappears when his prize-agent absconds with his funds and the prize court finds that two merchant ships he had captured were owned by neutral nations. The court demands he repay the value of the ships (rather than gain the prize money he expected), a sum beyond his means. Mrs Williams takes her daughters away to Bath on this news. Jack also dallies with Diana, straining his friendship with Stephen and showing himself indecisive on land, in contrast to his decisive ways at sea. Aubrey and Maturin flee England to avoid Aubrey being taken for debt.

In Toulon to visit Christy Pallière, the French captain who had captured Aubrey's first command Sophie before the peace, they learn that a renewal of the war is imminent. French authorities round up all English subjects. Jack and Stephen escape over the Pyrenees to Stephen's property in Catalonia, with Stephen disguised as an itinerant bear trainer and Jack as the bear, Flora. They reach Gibraltar, where Jack and Stephen take passage aboard a merchant ship of the British East India Company, the Lord Nelson. The ship is captured by the French privateer Bellone, but a British squadron overtakes them and rescues Aubrey, Maturin, and the other passengers.

In England, Jack is offered a letter of marque by Mr Canning, a wealthy Jewish merchant. At the same gathering at Queeney's, Mrs Williams and her daughter Cecilia are among the guests. Unaware Jack would be there, Sophia had stayed home with her sister Frances. Mrs Williams learns of Stephen's castle in Spain and his training as a physician, raising his status in her eyes. An inadequate thief approaches Jack as he walks outdoors; this Mr Scriven proves to be a useful friend, knowing the law of debt and where Jack can be safe from bailiffs. Aubrey and Maturin move to The Grapes, safe in the Liberty of the Savoy.

Offered command of HMS Polychrest, Jack turns Canning down. Polychrest is an oddly designed ship that was purpose-built as an experimental weapon, though the project is now abandoned and the Admiralty has tried to refit her for ordinary service. She is structurally weak and sails poorly, and the first lieutenant, Parker, is liberal with his punishments of the crew. Jack asks that Tom Pullings be promoted to lieutenant. Jack is given a free hand by Admiral Harte, who stands to benefit personally from any prizes taken. To Harte's disappointment, Jack captures no prizes. When he drives the French privateer Bellone aground outside a Spanish port, the merchants reward him. Harte then assigns Jack to escort convoys in the English Channel. Jack gains a reputation for lingering in port as he carries on a furtive affair with Diana. Meanwhile, Stephen is sent on an intelligence-gathering mission in Spain. On his return, Stephen is advised by Jack's friend Heneage Dundas to warn Jack about his reputation with the Admiralty. When Stephen does so, Jack gets angry, their competition over Diana is acknowledged, and the two agree to fight a duel. Jack calls on Diana, but finds her with Canning, ending Jack's interest in her.

Jack is ordered to raid the French port of Chaulieu to sink the French troopships and gunboats gathered there and to destroy the Fanciulla. The crew plans to mutiny because of their harsh treatment under Parker, but Stephen overhears their plans and warns Jack. Jack rues his angry words with Stephen, and then quashes the mutiny by putting the instigators and some loyal crew in a ship's boat and quickly beginning the attack. During the engagement, Polychrest runs aground between two enemy batteries. Jack leads three of the ship's boats to board and capture Fanciulla. The successful party then attempts to refloat Polychrest, which founders after leaving Chaulieu, and the crew transfer to Fanciulla. After the battle, Stephen and Jack, who has been seriously wounded in the battle, resume their friendship.

Aubrey returns to England in Fanciulla and is promoted to post-captain. With debt still hanging over him, he asks for any available command. He is assigned as acting captain for HMS Lively (1804), whose Captain Hamond has taken leave to sit in Parliament. Returning from Spain, Maturin tells the head of naval intelligence, Sir Joseph Blaine, that the Spanish will formally enter the war in alliance with France as soon as four ships full of bullion from Montevideo arrive safely in Cadiz. At Stephen's urging, Sophia asks Jack to transport her and her sister to the Downs. Though Jack is too poor to propose a marriage settlement satisfactory to Mrs Williams, Jack and Sophia come to an agreement not to marry anyone else. Stephen is close friends with Sophia but does not take her advice to propose to Diana. While attending the opera, he sees that Diana is being kept by Canning, and his pain is deep.

Maturin takes no pay for his intelligence work but does ask a favour: that Lively be included in the squadron sent to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet. The Admiralty agrees and asks Stephen to negotiate the fleet's surrender. Stephen is given a temporary naval rank; because of this and his connection to the Admiralty, Jack realizes that Stephen has been involved in intelligence work for Britain. Jack understands that there is a side of his friend that he did not know. The Spanish convoy refuses to surrender, and battle breaks out. One Spanish frigate (the Mercedes) explodes, and the other three (Fama, Clara, and Medea) surrender. Clara strikes her colours to Lively, pleasing Jack, but Fama, carrying the bulk of the Spanish treasure, attempts to escape to Cadiz; Lively pursues and captures her. Jack invites two of the Spanish captains to dinner, along with Dr Maturin, and they all toast Sophia.

Principal characters

 * Jack Aubrey: Commander of Polychrest and later appointed captain of HMS Lively.
 * Stephen Maturin: Ship's surgeon, natural philosopher, friend to Jack and intelligence officer; son of Irish and Catalan parents, knows both countries well.
 * Sophia Williams: Eldest daughter of three, fair-haired beauty of strong character, who lives in the neighborhood where Jack Aubrey takes a house during the brief peace. Aubrey falls in love with her but is indecisive with her in contrast to his decisive nature at sea.
 * Mrs Williams: Mother of Sophia, Cecilia, and Frances Williams, widowed. She is protective of her daughters while working to find a suitable husband for each. An unpleasant personality.
 * Diana Villiers: Same age cousin of Sophia Williams, both orphaned and widowed in India, now living with her Williams cousins. Both Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey are attracted to her dark-haired beauty and abrupt ways. Stephen surprises himself that he can fall in love again.
 * Earl Saint Vincent: First Lord of the Admiralty when Aubrey first requests a ship, after prize court decisions go against him. He does not have enough ships at hand.
 * General Aubrey: Father of Jack Aubrey. He recently married his dairymaid, and they have a son about the time Jack Aubrey learns of his debt due to the adverse prize court decision. The general lives at Woolcombe, is a member of Parliament, and speaks out too often, and against the Royal Navy, thus against his son's career advancement.
 * Sir Joseph Blaine: Head of naval intelligence, Stephen Maturin's contact at the Admiralty, and an entomologist.
 * Christy Pallière: Captain of the French ship that took Sophie, with cousins in Bath whom Jack Aubrey visited when also visiting Sophia. He is affable and sociable, and a good ship captain.
 * Dr Ramis: French ship's surgeon and contact for Maturin in Toulon.
 * Dumanoir de Plessy: Captain of the French privateer Bellone, wounded while taking the Lord Nelson. Maturin treats his wounds, yielding kinder treatment to the passengers now prisoners on his prize.
 * Azéma: Second captain from Bellone, captain aboard the prize Lord Nelson merchant ship, who struck his colors on meeting four Royal Navy ships of the line.
 * Mr Adam Scriven: An unemployed literary man and translator who instructs Aubrey and Maturin in the laws of debt and the safe haven of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Liberty of the Savoy in the midst of London.
 * Mrs Broad: Runs The Grapes, the inn in the Savoy, where Aubrey is safe from bailiffs wanting to take him for debt. He and Maturin set up there.
 * Lord Keith: Admiral in the Royal Navy, married to Queeney.
 * Queeney: Wife of Lord Keith, and in earlier days, neighbour and tutor to young Jack Aubrey, who hosts a gathering where Aubrey and Maturin meet Canning, as well as Diana Villiers, Mrs Williams and Cecilia.
 * Heneage Dundas: Close friend of Jack Aubrey who is already made post captain, into HMS Franchise, when he meets Aubrey and Maturin at Queeeney's "rout" (large evening party).
 * Mr Richard Canning: Wealthy trader with a fleet of merchant ships. He offers Aubrey a position as captain on his new privateering ship built like the Bellone. A married man, he pursues Diana Villiers, who goes into keeping with him.
 * Lord Melville: First Lord of the Admiralty when war resumes. His political support is the opposition to those who supported his predecessor, Lord Saint Vincent.
 * Admiral Harte: He has a squadron in the Downs, to which the Polychrest is attached. He has a strong grudge against Aubrey.
 * Mr Parker: First Lieutenant in Polychrest, he is cruel and excessive in handing out punishments, which nearly results in a mutiny on the Polychrest. He had sailed with Prince William (Duke of Clarence), who pressed Lord Melville about his friend's progress. Ironically, Aubrey's good word about him helps him gain his step at age 56 to master and commander on the Fanciulla, bought into service after capture.
 * Mr Tom Pullings: Young Second Lieutenant in Polychrest, promoted from master's mate, after his stint with the British East India Company during the peace, on the ship Lord Nelson, which Aubrey and Maturin board at Gibraltar.
 * Mr and Mrs Pullings: Parents of Tom who bring the food for the feast in Gosport to celebrate his promotion to lieutenant. Mrs Pullings brings her specialty savory pheasant pie, so good that she and Maturin talk at length about the tasty truffles she includes in it.
 * Mr William Babbington: Midshipman in Polychrest who injures his left arm in the taking of the Fanciulla.
 * Mr Parslow: Young midshipman aboard Polychrest.
 * Barret Bonden: Coxswain from HM Sloop Sophie who joins Aubrey on HMS Polychrest and is brought aboard HMS Lively.
 * Joe Plaice: Cousin to Bonden who signs on to the crew of the Polychrest.
 * Preserved Killick: Servant to Aubrey aboard HMS Polychrest and one of the only crewman he can take aboard HMS Lively as a jobbing captain.
 * James MacDonald: Reliable first lieutenant of Marines on Polychrest, until he loses part of his left arm in the attack of Bellone, recuperating in the naval hospital under Maturin's care. He has extensive conversations with Maturin on many topics, and loans his fine pistols to Maturin for the duel that never happens.
 * Smithers: Lieutenant of Marines replacing MacDonald aboard Polychrest, independently wealthy, who loses to Maturin at cards, but supports Aubrey at the time of the threatened mutiny.
 * Captain Hamond: Regular captain of HMS Lively, recently a Member of Parliament, who takes a leave of absence to engage in political activities, leaving the vacancy for Aubrey.
 * Mr Simmons: First lieutenant aboard HMS Lively, a well-run frigate. He is prize captain of Clara.
 * Mr Dashwood: Another lieutenant aboard HMS Lively. His sister and nephew take a ride to meet her husband, carried as a favour, similar to the ride Sophia and Cecilia Williams take to the Downs from Plymouth. He is on duty when the Fama strikes her colours. He is assigned prize captain of that ship.
 * Don José Bustamente: Admiral of the Spanish squadron, with his flag on the Medea, carrying treasures from the River Plate to Cadiz. The Royal Navy decides to intercept this squadron, hoping it will strike colors in the face of British force.
 * Don Ignacio: Captain of the Clara, taken aboard HMS Lively when Clara strikes her colours.
 * Graham Moore: Commodore of the British squadron and captain of HMS Indefatigable pursuing the Spanish squadron. He is impatient for action when the negotiations for surrender seem not to succeed.
 * Sutton: Captain of HMS Amphion in the British squadron to intercept the Real Armada (Spanish Royal Navy) squadron before it reaches Cadiz.

Ships

 * The British:
 * HMS Polychrest – sloop of fiction
 * HMS Amethyst (1799) – frigate
 * HMS Lively (1804) – 38-gun frigate
 * HMS Indefatigable (1784) – 40-gun frigate
 * HMS Medusa (1801) – 32-gun frigate
 * HMS Amphion (1798) – 32-gun frigate
 * Lord Nelson – East Indiaman

 * The French:
 * Fanciulla – corvette
 * Bellone (privateer)

 * The Spanish:
 * Medea – 40-gun frigate
 * Fama – 34-gun frigate
 * Clara – 34-gun frigate
 * Mercedes – 34-gun frigate

Historical
Stephen Maturin, in presenting his radical position against the tyranny of the navy, says that he would "certainly have joined the mutineers" had he been at the Spithead Mutiny.

The Treaty of Amiens was signed 25 March 1802 by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace". The consequent Peace of Amiens lasted only one year, ending on 18 May 1803. It was the only period of general peace in Europe during the so-called 'Great French War' between 1793 and 1815. Captain Christy-Pallière, whom Jack and Stephen visit at Toulon, was a real French Navy officer who did command the naval base at Toulon, though not in 1803.

For a few hundred years beginning in the 14th century, the Duchy of Lancaster was not subject to the King's laws, including pursuit for debt, having its own courts, laws and power of decision. Savoy was part of the lands in that Duchy. Though it was adjacent to the City of London and to Westminster, the Liberty of the Savoy, sometimes called the Liberties of the Savoy, was a safe haven from debt collectors acting under the King's law until sometime in the 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars. The author explained this from his own knowledge at a publisher's web page.

The novel describes the political tensions between Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty with the support of Prime Minister Pitt, and the Whigs, whose First Lord had been Earl St Vincent, immediate predecessor to Lord Melville. The Whigs charged Lord Melville with misappropriation of public funds. The novel posits that Melville could not properly defend himself because the funds in question were associated with the secret appropriations for intelligence gathering while he was Treasurer in the Admiralty. At the end of the novel, Lord Melville still holds his position while the impeachment and trial occur in the House of Lords. Lord Melville was acquitted in real life, but did not hold the office of First Lord again; his son Robert held the post later in the Napoleonic Wars. Like his father, he is portrayed as being in favor of the fictional Captain Aubrey.

The last action in the novel is based on a real action, the Battle of Cape Santa Maria on 5 October 1804, in which four British frigates – HMS Indefatigable (1784), HMS Lively (1804), HMS Medusa (1801), and HMS Amphion (1798) – successfully intercepted a Spanish flotilla carrying gold from South America, leaving from the mouth of the River Plate in present-day Montevideo, Uruguay. Captain Hamond, later Sir Graham Hamond, 2nd Baronet, was not in fact a member of Parliament and was in command of Lively during the action, taking the Spanish ships as Aubrey does in the novel.

Literature
In a conversation with MacDonald, Stephen Maturin argues about the various qualities of the Gaelic poet Ossian's writing and authenticity. This references similar controversy which had arisen during the period about the true authorship of James Macpherson's translation of his epic cycle, and continues to be questioned today in literary circles. In this same conversation, MacDonald references the Roman legal principle "falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus", which translates to "false in one thing, false in all things".

Publication history
Post Captain was first published by Lippincott in the US and Collins in the UK, both in 1972. W W Norton issued a reprint in the USA 18 years after the initial publication as part of its reissue in paperback of all the novels in the series prior to 1991. The novel has been in print since the re-issue, and also released in e-book and audiobook formats, in response to continuing interest in the novel.

The process of reissuing the novels initially published prior to 1991 was in full swing in 1991, as the whole series gained a new and wider audience, as Mark Howowitz describes in writing about The Nutmeg of Consolation, the fourteenth novel in the series, which was first published in 1991.

Two of my favorite friends are fictitious characters; they live in more than a dozen volumes always near at hand. Their names are Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, and their creator is a 77-year-old novelist named Patrick O'Brian, whose 14 books about them have been continuously in print in England since the first, "Master and Commander," was published in 1970.

O'Brian's British fans include T. J. Binyon, Iris Murdoch, A. S. Byatt, Timothy Mo and the late Mary Renault, but, until recently, this splendid saga of two serving officers in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars was unavailable in this country, apart from the first few installments which went immediately out of print. Last year, however, W. W. Norton decided to reissue the series in its entirety, and so far nine of the 14 have appeared here, including the most recent chapter, The Nutmeg of Consolation.

Literary significance and criticism

 * "One of the finest seafaring novels of the Napoleonic wars." – R. W., Taranaki Herald (New Zealand), on Post Captain

Mary Renault had high praise for the novel: "Master and Commander raised almost dangerously high expectations, Post Captain triumphantly surpasses them. Mr O'Brian is a master of his period, in which his characters are finely placed, while remaining three-dimensional, thoroughly human beings. This book sets him at the very top of his genre; he does not just have the chief qualifications of a first-class historical novelist, he has them all. The action scenes are superb; towards the end, far from being aware that one is reading what is, physically, a fairly long book, one notes with dismay that there is not much more to come....A brilliant book."

Library Journal found this to be a "rich blend of adventure, romance, and intrigue", reviewing an audiobook version read by John Lee and "Recommended for most collections."

Frank Prial wrote about Post Captain, in an article in The New York Times about the author in 1998, that "The Aubrey-Maturin series has been said to rival the sequential novels of Trollope and Anthony Powell. Mr O'Brian is particularly pleased when he is compared to Jane Austen, whom he reveres as the finest of all English novelists. First editions of most of her novels share shelf space in his small library here with first editions of Gibbon and Dr. Johnson and a battered but still useful 1810 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. The second book of the series, Post Captain, set mostly in country houses and as much a novel of manners as a sea story, has been said to be Mr. O'Brian's homage to Ms. Austen."

In an article published in a maritime law journal, Alison Sulentic proposes that "As inviting as Master and Commander may  be, however, it is Post Captain, the second  novel in the series, that unveils O’Brian’s genius and stakes his claim to recognition as the author of "the  best  historical  novels ever written." The intricate interweaving of plot lines that trace the personal and professional fortunes of the main characters crosses many of the more traditional categorizations of popular fiction." Sulentic assesses the plot in some detail against moral philosophy and the notions of 'the law as it is' and 'the law as it ought to be', and the development of Aubrey and Maturin in Post Captain, saying on page 588, "Over the course of Post Captain, both Jack and Stephen come to know wisdom in a way that profoundly alters the approach each takes to the intersection of law and morality." She mentions on page 589 the felicitous choice of names, perhaps a "deliberate conceit", for the ship Aubrey loves, HMS Sophie and the woman he loves, Sophia, and the name Sophia meaning wisdom.

In a more recent review, author Jo Walton finds this the book in the series with the poorest plot structure-"broken-backed", though complimenting the characters and incidents. The particular incident of the duel that did not happen between Aubrey and Maturin is noted: "The duel and then the fact that they never mention that they’ve reconciled feels very strange." She notes a scene worth praise for showing the themes of life on land versus life at sea, where Aubrey "runs from the bailiffs back to sea and calls back “Mr Pullings, press that man!” He presses the bailiffs who have come to arrest him for debt!

title: Post Captain (novel)


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Tyne Daly

Ellen Tyne Daly (born February 21, 1946) is an American actress. Over her six decade career she is known for her leading roles on stage and screen. She has won six Emmy Awards for her television work, a Tony Award, and is a 2011 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee.

Daly began her career on stage in summer stock in New York, and made her Broadway debut in the play That Summer – That Fall in 1967. She is best known for her television role as Detective Mary Beth Lacey in the CBS police drama Cagney & Lacey (1982–88), for which she won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She also won Emmy Awards for her roles as Alice Henderson in the period drama series Christy (1994–95), and Maxine Gray in the legal drama series Judging Amy (1999–2005).

She starred in the Broadway revival of Gypsy (1989) earning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Her other Tony-nominated roles were in Rabbit Hole (2006) and Mothers and Sons (2014). She played Maria Callas, both on Broadway and in London's West End, in the play Master Class (2011–12). Her other Broadway credits include The Seagull (1992) and It Shoulda Been You (2015).

Daly made her film debut in John and Mary (1969). She is known for her film roles in The Enforcer (1976), Hello, My Name Is Doris (2015), and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018). She received a Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female nomination for her role in the Patrick Wang drama A Bread Factory (2018). She portrayed Anne Marie Hoag in Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

Early years and education
Daly was born in Madison, Wisconsin, to actor James Daly and actress Mary Hope (née Newell). She is of Irish descent, her ancestors being from Limerick and County Kerry. Her younger brother is actor Tim Daly, and she has two sisters, Mary Glynn and Pegeen Michael.

She was raised in Rockland County, New York, where she started her career by performing in summer stock with her family; she earned her Equity Card at age 15. She studied at Brandeis University and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

1967–1980: Career beginnings
Daly's first Broadway role was in 1967 in a short-lived play, That Summer, That Fall.

Daly appeared in John and Mary (1969), Angel Unchained (1970), Play It as It Lays (1972), and The Adulteress. She was cast as Inspector Harry Callahan's first female partner, Kate Moore, in the 1976 Dirty Harry film The Enforcer. The film was critically panned, though a box office success. Daly's performance divided critics, with some calling it too "mannered" for film, while others praised the strength she brought to the role. The concept of a male/female police partnership was later used as the basis for the television show Hunter.

1981–2005: Breakthrough and stardom
Daly appeared in the CBS police-procedural crime drama Cagney & Lacey as Mary Beth Lacey, the married working mother. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series four times, in 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1988, and was a nominee in 1986 and 1987. Between co-star Sharon Gless and her, they won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series six years in a row.

In 1988, Daly appeared on the Dolly Parton TV variety show Dolly, and sang (at her request) a duet with Parton. Broadway producer Barry Brown saw the show and, impressed by Daly's performance, decided to mount a revival of the musical Gypsy with Daly in the lead role of Rose. Cagney & Lacey had finished airing, and Daly agreed. In April 1989, the Daly-helmed Gypsy revival began a 14-city U.S. tour; it was then presented on Broadway in November 1989. This production was the second revival of the show to play Broadway (the first was in 1974 with Angela Lansbury). Daly won the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in Gypsy. Daly left Gypsy in July 1990, with Linda Lavin playing Rose, and returned in April 1991 through closing in July 1991.

In 1991, Daly guest-starred on her brother Tim's series Wings, playing a woman who dates Brian Hackett (Steven Weber), brother of Tim's character Joe. She appeared in the Broadway revival of The Seagull in 1992 as Madame Arkadina. She appeared as Sally Adams in the City Center Encores! staged concert of Call Me Madam in February 1995. In regional theatre, she played Lola in Come Back, Little Sheba at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Los Angeles, in April 1997.

She appeared as social worker Maxine Gray, who was also the mother to the show's title character on the CBS drama Judging Amy, which ran from 1999 to 2005. Addressing a conference of the National Association of Social Workers in 2000, Daly said she had learned from social workers and social work texts to improve her portrayal of her character, and she added: "I take from you because you are the ones dealing with all the bad institutions of our society: institutionalized poverty, institutionalized racism, institutionalized cynicism." Daly appeared in the Lifetime television film Undercover Christmas in 2003 titled Undercover Christmas, as Anne Cunningham. Among her later television roles, Daly reunited with Cagney & Lacey costar Sharon Gless in a 2010 guest role on the series Burn Notice.

2006–present: Return to Broadway
She appeared on Broadway in the David Lindsay-Abaire play Rabbit Hole (2006) portraying the mother of the play's protagonist, played by Cynthia Nixon. For her performance she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. In January 2008, she played the role of Mother in the world premiere production of Edward Albee's Me, Myself & I at the McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey. In 2009, she appeared in the original cast of Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Daly performed a cabaret act, Second Time Around, in January 2010 at Feinstein's at Loews Regency, New York City. She had previously performed at Feinstein's in May 2009.

During this time she took several roles in television including taking on the role of portraying Mabel Dodge Luhan in the Lifetime movie Georgia O'Keefe acting alongside Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. She also guest starred as Carolyn Shepherd in a 2009 episode of the ABC medical drama series Grey's Anatomy and Tina in the 2010 episode of the USA Network series Burn Notice. She starred as Maria Callas in the Terrence McNally play Master Class at the Manhattan Theater Club on Broadway, from June 14, 2011 (previews) to September 4, 2011. For her performance she was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress in a Play. Daly reprised her role as Maria Callas in the West End production of Master Class, which opened at the Vaudeville Theatre on February 7, 2012 (after previews from January 21) in a limited engagement to April 28, 2012. She had a guest starring role as an imperious teacher Mrs. Plank in 2014 episode "Won't You Be Our Neighbor" from the ABC sitcom Modern Family. She originated the role of Judy Steinberg in It Shoulda Been You, at the George Street Playhouse, New Brunswick, New Jersey, which ran from October 4 to November 6, 2011. The musical ran on Broadway in 2015.

She took supporting roles in the independent film Hello, My Name Is Doris starring Sally Field, the romantic comedy film Basmati Blues (2017) with Brie Larson and played Anne Marie Hoag in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). She had a minor role in the Coen Brothers anthology Western film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018). That same year she had a leading role in the Patrick Wang films A Bread Factory Part 1 & 2 (2018). In the fall of that year Daly joined the cast of the revival of the Murphy Brown series, playing the character of Phyllis, who runs the bar which Murphy and her coworkers often patronize. She also guest starred in Grey's Anatomy in 2019, Madam Secretary in 2019, and Mom in 2021. In 2024 Daly was set to return to Broadway in a revival of John Patrick Shanley's play Doubt opposite Liev Schreiber; however, she withdrew from the production after being hospitalized.

Reputation
Daly has been identified as a feminist icon in the media, particularly based on her television role in Cagney and Lacey. Her role as Lacey showed a woman detective at a time where the idea was still novel; the show was also novel in presenting Lacey primarily in a work environment, rather than always showing the character at home. She has also been outspoken about maintaining a natural appearance as she ages, and for the run of Judging Amy, Daly's hair was its naturally gray state and not dyed.

Personal life
Tyne Daly was married to Georg Stanford Brown from 1966 to 1990. They have three daughters, including actress Kathryne Dora Brown.

Filmography
Sources:

Awards and nominations
Daly has been nominated for the Emmy Award a total of 16 times; she has won 6 times, for the following television performances:
 * Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Cagney and Lacey in 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1988
 * Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Christy in 1996
 * Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Judging Amy in 2003

She was also recognized for her work on Broadway receiving a Tony Award with three nominations:
 * Best Actress in a Musical, winner, for Rose in Gypsy (1990)
 * Best Featured Actress in a Play, nominee, for Nat in Rabbit Hole (2006)
 * Best Actress in a Play, nominee, for Katharine in Mothers and Sons (2014)

Discography

 * Bernstein: On the Town, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, Deutsche Grammophon, 1993

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Tyne Daly


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Bergland, Michigan

Bergland is a census-designated place (CDP) and the primary community in Bergland Township, Ontonagon County, Michigan, United States. It is situated on the north shore of Lake Gogebic, the largest natural inland lake on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Highway M-28 passes through the center of town, leading east 19 mi to Bruce Crossing and southwest 20 mi to Wakefield. M-64 leads north from Bergland 17 mi to the shore of Lake Superior and 30 mi to Ontonagon, the county seat. Bergland is bordered to the west by the Lake Gogebic CDP.

The community was first listed as a CDP prior to the 2020 census.

title: Bergland, Michigan


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Thomas Mofolo

Thomas Mokopu Mofolo (22 December 1876 – 8 September 1948) is often regarded as the first African novelist. His body of work, which consists of three books composed between 1905 and 1910, were first written in Sesotho, and then widely translated.

He is best known for his third book, Chaka, a fictional retelling of the story of the rise and fall of the Zulu emperor-king Shaka.

Life
While Thomas Mofolo's work has been widely examined, his life story has been largely overlooked and no complete biography has been published. What is known stems from a short autobiographical sketch that appeared in 1930, the work of Daniel Kunene in the 1980s, and more recent archival research by the curator of Morija Museum and Archives.

The third child of Abner and Aleta Mofolo, Thomas Mofolo was born in ha Khojane, Serupane, in what was then Basutoland.

His family were members of the Protestant church and remained loyal to the Cape Colony forces during the Basuto Gun War, which led them to flee their home and settle in Mafeteng. Having spent his early year herding the family's cattle, Mofolo began his education at the age of 10 or 12 under the guidance of Everitt Lechesa Segoete at Qomoqomong. Segoete was a great influence and would go on to be published himself. A polyglot, Mofolo learned isiXhosa and English during these years, while speaking Sesotho and Dutch with his family.

Mofolo continued his education, first at Masitise and then in 1894 at Morija where he attended Bible School. In 1896, he moved again to Thabeng for teacher training. Between 1896 and 1898 rinderpest killed 95% of cattle in the region, and Mofolo's family could no longer pay his school fees. By 1898, at the age of 22, Mofolo was able to complete his studies and gained employment at the Morija Sesuto Book Depot, which acted as the centre of publishing in Basutoland.

His time at the Book Depot was cut short by the Anglo-Boer War, which led to shortages of paper and other materials. Mofolo returned to education, this time to Leloaleng Industrial School, where he learned carpentry, before becoming a teacher at Maseru.

In 1904 Mofolo returned to the Morija Sesuto Book Depot, and that year married Francina Mats’eliso Shoarane, who was a Xhosa who had been educated in the Cape Colony. The previous year, Francina had published a short letter, which was very uncommon for a woman at that time. Their first child was born in 1908. During the next few years, Mofolo read widely and developed his own interest in writing literature. He also became politically active, joining the Kopana ea Tsoelo-pele (the Union for Progress), which had been established in 1907.

Mofolo fled Morija in 1910 following an adulterous relationship, and moved to Johannesburg to work as a labour recruiter. He retruned to Basutoland in 1912, continuing his work as a labour agent for a mining group as well as his own private ventures. Francina died on 20 September 1915, and Thomas married his second wife, Josefina, in 1918. She died on 27 October 1927, and he married for a third time in 1933. He remained married to his third wife, Emma, until his death.

Thomas' business ventures continued through the 1920s and 1930s, leading to the purchase of a farm in 1933 over the border in the Union of South Africa. However, the sale was in violation of the Natives Land Act, leaving Mofolo to bear all the costs. This led to financial ruin. In 1941, he suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered, and in 1949 he died in poverty, aged 72, in Teyateyaneng.

Works
Mofolo published three books during his lifetime. His career as a writer, like much of his education, was shaped by the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. His first two works were initially serialised in Leselinyana, a missionary newspaper, before they published them in book form. Mofolo's third, Chaka, was suppressed and publication was delayed by around 15 years due to the reluctance of the missionary press to release the work.

Mofolo also produced another manuscript, The Fallen Angel, in around 1908. This was met with disapproval from the missionaries, was never published, and is now lost. Little is known of it, other than a passing reference in a contemporary missionary account that notes it set out to disprove an unspecified theory of Marie Corelli.

His three published novels have all been translated into English and other languages, often with misconceptions and misunderstandings on the part of the translators.

Moeti oa Bochabela / Traveller to the East
Moeti oa Bochabela is widely accepted as the first novel published in an African language. It was first serialised in Leselinyana in 1906 before appearing as a book the following year. In 1930, an English translation, Traveller to the East, was published by Hugh Ashton (wrongly attributed as Harry Ashton in later editions).

While now considered a pioneer African novel, it was conceived as an allegory or fable and often seen to borrow heavily from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. More recently, the place of lithoko praise poems and the influence of other Sesotho writers whose work appeared in Leselinyana, such as Daniele Methusala, have been highlighted. Set in precolonial Lesotho, the English translation sees the protagonist, Fekisi, view society being overtaken by evil, with the only solution to turn towards Christianity. Elsewhere, it is seen as a merging of Sotho beliefs and Christian thoughts.

Pitseng / A Search for True Love
Like Moeti oa Bochabela, Pitseng was also serialised in Leselinyana before appearing as a book in 1910. An English translation did not appear until 2013.

A novel about love and marriage, as well as the natural environment, Pitseng is set in a village in Lesotho at the beginning of the twentieth century. While vividly describing the natural world, the novel is a love story between a school teacher and a local girl. It has been interpreted as an indictment of the hypocrisy of European Christianity.

Chaka
Thomas Mofolo achieved much wider reach with his third and final novel. By 1962 at least 40,000 of the Sesotho original had been printed, with translations appearing in English, French, German, Italian and Afrikaans. It was ranked among the top twelve of 'African's 100 Best Books on the Twentieth Century' in 2002.

Chaka is an historical novel that fictionalises the life of Shaka and the period of the difaqane. It has been widely studied and interpreted in various ways.

Recognition
The library at the National University of Lesotho is named the Thomas Mofolo Library in his honour.

In 1976, Nadine Gordimer created the Mofolo-Plomer Prize in honour of Thomas Mofolo and William Plomer. More recently, the Thomas Mofolo Prize for Outstanding Sesotho Fiction was launched in 2019.

title: Thomas Mofolo


text:
User:Seth Ilys/WikiPhilosophy

Here I plan to work out some of my thoughts about philosophy, ethics, administration, and organization, as they relate to Wikipedia. I intend these essays to be my own original work, released under the GFDL. However, feel free to help me refine my thoughts by making comments in italics after the relevant paragraph or section; I'll remove the comments as I respond to them within the essay. Like everything else on the Wiki, this is a work in progress.

NPOV
A "neutral point of view" is, in fact, a point of view. It's the point of view that we can't take sides on disputed issues. Strictly speaking, it should be called "all points of view."

NPOV as a policy can only effectively be applied to articles, and not to statements or even paragraphs. It's an approach to writing articles. In truth, no individual statement can be NPOV.

Wikipedia doesn't archive facts, it archives contemporary knowledge.

Ethics of Information
Information has positive value. The dissemination of information is a desirable thing.

Privacy is not a right.

Lies and secrecy have negative value.

==Consensus==

''Before discovering Wikipedia.com, if you had asked me if a Wiki would work, I would have said no! People would vandalize it, people would argue forever. However, Wikis have an amazing property. Unlike mailing lists, newsgroups and bulletin boards where people argue forever, and get real mad at each other, Wikis tend to come to a consensus. If there are irreconcilable differences, people will eventually be happy if both sides are presented. Arguments are presented in the "Talk" pages so they are not presented to the casual reader of an article. A community develops that defends the spirit of the Wiki. Vandalism is promptly fixed. Paul Studier 23:53, 2004 Jun 15 (UTC) ''

title: User:Seth Ilys/WikiPhilosophy


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fos links

This page is an archive of the discussion surrounding the proposed deletion of the page entitled Fos links.

This page is kept as an historic record.

The result of the debate was to delete the article.

 * Delete. Nothing but external links. 66.32.129.87 21:13, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Poor title, inaccurate links, some of which are not FOS. Links should be merged with FOSS or put elsewhere; page should be deleted. --Tagishsimon
 * Just delete. -- Cyrius|&#9998 22:16, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Oh, but why? Fos is not foss!  Kidding.  Delete. - Lucky 6.9 16:20, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue or the deletion should be placed on other relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
Desolation Island (novel)

Desolation Island is the fifth historical novel in the Aubrey–Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. It was first published in 1978.

The story follows Jack Aubrey as he takes command of HMS Leopard on a mission meant to reach Australia, and occurs prior to the War of 1812. Stephen Maturin is assigned to the voyage in order to monitor a beautiful young American spy who is aboard the ship as a prisoner.

Critics praised the novel's “literate, clear-eyed realism” at initial publication, as well as the stirring naval action in the cold southern ocean as the Leopard is chased by the Dutch ship.

Plot summary
Having recovered financially in The Mauritius Command, Captain Jack Aubrey is expanding his home and has paid off his mother-in-law's debts, and his wife is no longer pinching pennies. His household is staffed with seamen, and his twin daughters and infant son are thriving. Despite his comfortable pay while serving in the Fencibles office, he is still frittering away his fortune with foolish business endeavours, and Stephen Maturin suggests that Jack's tendency to assume honesty in others is getting him cheated at cards. Stephen learns that Diana Villiers has returned from America, unmarried, but when he calls upon her he only finds a letter explaining that her young American friend Louisa Wogan has been apprehended by British authorities and questioned as a spy. Though Diana herself is innocent of the espionage charges, she has been forced to flee England suddenly, so Stephen pays her bills. Arrangements are made to transport Mrs Wogan to a penal colony in New South Wales.

Meanwhile, the governor in New South Wales, Captain Bligh of Bounty infamy, has been deposed in a feud with the local settlers. Jack is offered command of the old HMS Leopard for a mission to Australia to restore Bligh, which he accepts to escape his woes on land. Sir Joseph Blaine explains to Stephen that Mrs Wogan will be carried aboard the Leopard as a prisoner, along with two dozen other convicts to disguise the nature of the charges against her. Jack is furious at having to carry prisoners. Partly to prevent Stephen's laudanum addiction from compromising his work, Blaine assigns Maturin to the voyage to watch Wogan, hoping that by doing so he may uncover American secrets.

Shortly after embarking, the prisoners kill their superintendent and surgeon during a storm, and Stephen discovers the squalor of their captivity in the orlop. Jack orders their conditions be improved to meet naval standards but an outbreak of gaol fever nonetheless spreads from the convicts to the seamen, killing most of the male prisoners and 116 of the ship's crew and leaving the Leopard severely undermanned. Stephen's assistant Mr Martin dies, and is replaced by Michael Herapath, who has stowed away in pursuit of his lover, Mrs Wogan. Jack rates Herapath a midshipman despite his American citizenship. The ship is forced to leave many recovering crew members at Recife, including Tom Pullings. He is replaced with James Grant as first lieutenant, who proves a challenge for Captain Aubrey. While they are in port, HMS Nymph arrives damaged from an encounter with the Waakzaamheid, a Dutch 74-gun ship-of-the-line, while crossing the Equator. Stephen fabricates a story that Mr Martin was a French agent in a letter that he deliberately leaves for Herapath and Wogan to read and copy, hoping the false information will confuse French and American intelligence.

The Leopard encounters the Dutch ship before reaching the Cape of Good Hope, but Jack cannot risk a confrontation with the much larger and fully manned Waakzaamheid. He repels a boarding party with grapeshot during the night and nearly escapes his pursuer, but the Dutch captain eerily predicts Jack's every move and blocks his route to the Cape. The Dutchman chases them south into the Roaring Forties for five days, where the waves and wind increase, and the ships finally engage in dangerously high seas. Casks of fresh water are jettisoned from the Leopard to lighten her. After a long exchange of fire Jack is struck in the head by a large splinter and knocked senseless. With the Waakzaamheid gaining on her, a lucky shot from the Leopard strikes her foremast, causing it to fall into the sea. Without its driving force the Waakzaamheid yaws onto her beam-ends in the trough of a deep wave and is overwhelmed by the next, sinking with all hands.

Now east of the Cape, the Leopard aims for New South Wales. Jack orders the crew to collect ice from icebergs to replace their fresh water stores, but the ship strikes an iceberg stern-on, damaging the rudder and causing a severe leak. Desperate to save the ship, all hands work the pumps continuously for days and rush to fother a sail to stop the leak. Though Jack has been seriously wounded in the battle, he tries to quell rumors that his mind is unsound. Believing the Leopard cannot be saved, Grant challenges Jack's fitness for command, requesting permission to take the Leopard boats and the men who wish to leave and head for the Cape, which Jack accepts. Only the jolly boat is left behind. Jack and the crew members loyal to him continue to drift east on the Leopard, still rudderless and pumping furiously to keep her afloat. Making adroit use of anchors and a jury-rigged rudder, Jack navigates the ship to safe harbour in a bay of the remote, uninhabited, and poorly charted Desolation Island just as a storm approaches. Despite its name, it is full of fresh food in the rainy Antarctic summer.

The crew repairs the damage to the ship's hull but cannot fashion a mounting for a replacement rudder without the use of a forge, which had been cast overboard in the desperation to lighten the ship. Jack fears they will be stranded on the island through the winter. Meanwhile, Stephen is in paradise as he and Herapath collect samples of the local plant and animal life from a small island in the bay. After a few days a whaler arrives in the bay: it is the American brig La Fayette, returning to the island to resupply with the edible cabbages growing on shore, which they need to combat scurvy. The Americans have lost their surgeon and their captain is incapacitated by a painful toothache, but they have a working forge. A delicate situation arises when the captain proves hostile to the Royal Navy; sentiment aboard the American ship is strongly against the English, reflecting American–British tensions stemming from an 1807 incident involving the Leopard and the USS Chesapeake, the continued impressment of Americans into the Royal Navy, and the awareness that the two nations might already be at war. Sensitive to these issues, Jack asks Stephen's advice, who suggests using Herapath as an envoy to Captain Putnam. Stephen follows, and the pair provides medical care to all aboard. Putnam offers to pay but Stephen will not accept payment.

The next morning the forge is on the beach for the Leopard use. Stephen advises Jack to resist any desire to press the British deserters serving aboard the whaler. Knowing that American citizens cannot be removed from an American ship without causing a diplomatic incident, Stephen sees a perfect way to speed his plan to use Mrs Wogan to undermine French intelligence, by deliberately letting her and Herapath escape aboard the whaler carrying a packet of falsified information. Wogan is now pregnant with Herapath's child. Stephen gives them the opportunity to escape by suggesting that Herapath should perform the last health check on the American ship before it departs. The forge is returned and the La Fayette sails on the evening tide. While Jack is distracted by the ceremony of setting the new rudder in place, Stephen and Barret Bonden watch from a distance as Herapath and Wogan slip away in the night to board the whaler.

Characters

 * Jack Aubrey - Captain of HMS Leopard, and recently painted wearing the Order of the Bath, but he does not appear to have been awarded the knighthood as he does not use the title in this or subsequent books.
 * Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, physician, intelligence agent, and friend to Jack.
 * Sophia Williams - Jack's wife and mother of their three children, Charlotte, Fanny and young George.
 * Mrs Williams - Jack's mother-in-law, now financially secure, with tenants in Mapes Court, choosing to live with her daughter and three grandchildren.
 * Diana Villiers - first cousin to Sophia, and Stephen's love interest; recently returned from America.
 * Sir Joseph Blaine - a senior figure in the Admiralty's espionage department, Maturin's colleague and a fellow naturalist.
 * Mr Kimber - the schemer (projector) with a process to recover the lead and silver from “valuable dross” on Aubrey's land

At Craddock's for cards
 * Andrew Wray - in the Patronage Office and the Treasury, involved with intelligence.
 * Judge Wray - older cousin of Andrew Wray
 * Mr Carroll – another player, friend of the Wrays
 * Mr Jenyns – another player, friend of the Wrays
 * Heneage Dundas – half-pay captain and long-time friend of Aubrey, stands up with him at challenge

At Ashgrove Cottage dinner
 * Lieutenant Tom Pullings – Long time friend of Aubrey and Maturin, to be First Lieutenant on Leopard
 * Captain Peter Heywood – as a young man was one of the mutineers of the Bounty under Lieutenant Bligh, then brought back to England by the cruel Captain Edwards on Pandora, spared from hanging due to his youth; sailed the Leopard a few years back.

On the Leopard
 * Mr Martin - specialist in anatomy and assistant to Maturin, specifically chosen by him; recovers from gaol fever after treating so many on ship and documenting his own case, then dies from pneumonia.
 * Mrs Louisa Wogan - American prisoner on board HMS Leopard, sentenced to transportation to New South Wales for espionage.
 * Michael Herapath - an American stowaway and lover of Louisa Wogan. Aubrey saves his life when Herapath falls into the sea while trying to reach the royal masts, for which he is most grateful. He becomes Maturin's surgical assistant after the gaol fever epidemic.
 * Mrs Boswell - prisoner on board HMS Leopard, pregnant, her child Leopardina is delivered by surgery during the battle with the Waakzaamheid; she also tells fortunes to the crew to bad effect, requiring Maturin's intervention.
 * Barret Bonden - coxswain for Captain Aubrey, who also watches out for Maturin.
 * James Grant - Second Lieutenant on HMS Leopard, whose book about a voyage in 1800 to New South Wales is read on board by the Captain and Dr Maturin; replaces Pullings when he is left in Recife to recover from gaol fever.
 * Babbington - third lieutenant aboard the Leopard, with his Newfoundland dog. Acting second lieutenant after Recife.
 * George Byron - midshipman aboard HMS Leopard, promoted to acting fourth lieutenant after the epidemic.
 * Moore - Marine Captain on Leopard, skilled in gunnery, aims the shot that hits the foremast of the Waakzaamheid.
 * John C Howard - Marine Lieutenant of the Leopard who plays the flute exceptionally well, murdered by Larkin in 41 degrees south latitude.
 * Larkin - master of the Leopard, frequently drunk, considers himself a Jonah, leaves with Grant.
 * Rev Mr Fisher - chaplain on the Leopard, proves of no help in the epidemic and entirely self-centered as the challenges of the voyage continue.
 * Faster Doudle - one of the prime seamen who trades their lime juice-laced rum for tobacco after the steering oar breaks approaching the Crozet Islands, thus bringing on scurvy until treated by Maturin.
 * David Allan - acting bosun after Grant parts from Leopard; he is essential in the task of anchoring in the bay at Desolation Island.

On the American whaler, the brig La Fayette of Nantucket, Massachusetts
 * Captain Winthrop Putnam - American captain of whaler, suffers from a debilitating toothache, unfriendly to the English.
 * Mr Reuben Hyde - first mate who leaves note at cove about the cabbages.

Ships

 * British
 * HMS Leopard - 50-gun
 * HMS Nymph - 32-gun
 * Dutch
 * Waakzaamheid - 74-gun
 * American
 * La Fayette - whaling brig

Reviews
Kirkus Reviews noted the "usual action" present in Desolation Island compared to other nautical novels, and praised O'Brian's "literate, clear-eyed realism", which may broaden the audience for the novel beyond the usual readers of a story set on sailing ships. Reviewing a later book in the series for the Los Angeles Times, Anthony Day glowingly recalled Desolation Island, writing, "Aubrey's relentless pursuit of the Dutch warship Waakzaamheid in the roaring ocean below the southern tip of Africa, day after day in frightful weather, stirs the emotions of dread and hope in every reader."

Allusions/references to history, culture and geography
The Leopard stops for water and fresh supplies in Saint Jago, one of the Cape Verde islands, west of Senegal and in Aubrey's time a colony of Portugal. In the nineteenth century, the name Saint Jago was used instead of the modern Santiago.

The real-life Leopard's earlier involvement in the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair in 1807 is described in the novel. The appearance of the American whaler reveals the tension between the English and the Americans on the eve of the War of 1812. O'Brian based the account of the near-sinking of the Leopard, after striking an iceberg, on an actual event involving HMS Guardian (1784) and her commander Edward Riou in 1789.

The novel uses Lieutenant James Grant as the model for the fictional second lieutenant Grant, who parts from the Leopard when the situation is most grim. The real Grant was promoted to commander in 1805, and this story takes place about 1811. Despite his early success as captain of sloops, the real Grant's career was not followed by anything more than the promotion to commander, though he was years older than Jack Aubrey, so he provides a good base for the fictional lieutenant who would much rather be the captain.

Captain William Bligh's governorship of New South Wales is mentioned as the motive for Aubrey's mission, though Aubrey does not reach New South Wales during the novel, nor meets Bligh in any part of the story. Aubrey does tell Maturin how Bligh is viewed by the Royal Navy, the point of which is that his storytelling foreshadows how Aubrey handles his crew after the Dutch ship sinks and their ship hits the iceberg, and how Aubrey handles Lieutenant Grant, turning a potential mutiny into an officially condoned parting of ways. In addition, Aubrey and Maturin speak with Captain Peter Heywood, who served aboard the Bounty during the mutiny and was later recovered from Pitcairn Island by Captain Edwards, sent to fetch the mutineers back.

The reason why Bligh is in trouble in the moment of the novel is also described. In short, Bligh faced another mutiny, but this time by staff under him as Governor of the colony of New South Wales. Captain Heywood offers the explanation that Bligh seemed not to understand the reactions of others to many things he said, and then to react too harshly, which those around him perceived as harsh criticism and a miserable life. The Rum Rebellion, also known as the Rum Puncheon Rebellion, of 1808 was the only successful armed takeover of government in Australia's recorded history. As Governor of New South Wales, William Bligh was deposed by the New South Wales Corps under the command of Major George Johnston, working closely with John Macarthur, on 26 January 1808. Afterwards, acting governors were sworn in until the arrival from Britain of Major-General Lachlan Macquarie at the beginning of 1810.

From the book, Desolation Island is geographically close to the Kerguelen Islands. However, in a later book, The Thirteen Gun Salute, O'Brian writes some dialogue between Richardson and Aubrey that explicitly states that Kerguelen Island is not Desolation Island: "'Kerguelen is what some people call Desolation Island, is it not, sir?' asked Richardson. 'So they do. But it is not our Desolation Island, which is smaller, farther south and east.'" Despite the dialogue in The Thirteen Gun Salute, the description of the harbor where the Leopard seeks shelter is taken exactly from Captain Cook's description of Christmas Harbor, in the far northwest corner of Kerguelen, which he mapped with the assistance of his sailing master, William Bligh, on his last voyage.

One reader and amateur critic argued that the novel reprised an ancient theme in religion and mythology, that of descent and redemption. In this view, Jack and Stephen are disgraced in the Overworld, Jack by ruinous investments, card games and quarrels, Stephen by losing a patient, falling from favor with naval intelligence, and above all, by losing Diana. They journey to the Underworld, below the equator, to the high southern latitudes, experience epic trials, and achieve redemption at Desolation Island. This paper, "Allegory Wrestling, or Desolation Island Decoded", was originally posted on the Gunroom email list, devoted to the Aubrey-Maturin series, and presented at a panel on Patrick O'Brian and the series at a popular culture conference in Boston in 1998.

Relation to other novels in the series
Desolation Island differs from the prior novels in the series in that the main characters are not back in England or safely on their way by the end of the story. This novel ends with Aubrey and Maturin still on Desolation Island at the end of the Antarctic summer, having just floated the ship and installed the rudder, far from home and from the intended destination for their original mission, with a part of the crew having already separated to try to navigate to the Cape in small boats. The reader does not know if the original mission will be completed or how they will get home to England until the next novel, The Fortune of War, or a yet later novel. As in previous novels, several characters are introduced who appear in later novels. Many of the characters appear in the next novel, The Fortune of War, and some appear in several novels before their story is told (e.g. Andrew Wray).

Film and music adaptation
The novel is one of several novels in the series whose themes were incorporated into the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

The American folksinger Jed Marum wrote and recorded the song "Desolation Island" in 2001, based on the book.

Publication history

 * 1978 Collins Hardback First edition ISBN 0-00-222145-4
 * 1979, March Stein & Day; Hardcover edition First USA edition ISBN 0-8128-2590-X
 * 1979 Fontana / Collins; Paperback edition ISBN 0-00-615586-3 / 978-0-00-615586-7 (UK edition)
 * 1981 Day Books; 1st Mass-market Paperback ISBN 0812870662 edition
 * 1991 W. W. Norton & Company Paperback Reprint edition ISBN 039330812X (USA edition)
 * 1994 W. W. Norton & Company Hardcover Reprint edition ISBN 0393037053 (USA edition)
 * 1998, May HarperCollins hardback ISBN 0-00-222145-4 / 978-0-00-222145-0 (UK edition)
 * 2001, January Thorndike Press Hardcover Large-print edition ISBN 0-7862-1926-2 / 978-0-7862-1926-1 (USA edition)
 * 2001, January Chivers Large Print hardback ISBN 0-7540-1544-0 / 978-0-7540-1544-4 (UK edition)
 * 2004 Blackstone Audiobooks Unabridged Audio CD edition ISBN 0786183993
 * 1993 Recorded Books Audio CD edition, narrator Patrick Tull, ISBN 1-4025-3930-4 / 978-1-4025-3930-5 (USA edition)
 * 2011 W. W. Norton & Company e-Book ISBN 0393088529 (USA edition)
 * 2011 Harper e-book (UK edition)

This novel was first published by Stein & Day in the USA. Fontana / Collins issued a paperback in the same year, 1979. W W Norton issued a reprint 12 years after the initial publication as part of its reissue in paperback of all the novels in the series prior to 1991.

The process of reissuing the novels initially published prior to 1991 was in full swing in 1991, as the whole series gained a new and wider audience, as Mark Howowitz describes in writing about The Nutmeg of Consolation, the fourteenth novel in the series and initially published in 1991.

Two of my favorite friends are fictitious characters; they live in more than a dozen volumes always near at hand. Their names are Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, and their creator is a 77-year-old novelist named Patrick O'Brian, whose 14 books about them have been continuously in print in England since the first, "Master and Commander," was published in 1970.

O'Brian's British fans include T. J. Binyon, Iris Murdoch, A. S. Byatt, Timothy Mo and the late Mary Renault, but, until recently, this splendid saga of two serving officers in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars was unavailable in this country, apart from the first few installments which went immediately out of print. Last year, however, W. W. Norton decided to reissue the series in its entirety, and so far nine of the 14 have appeared here, including the most recent chapter, The Nutmeg of Consolation.

title: Desolation Island (novel)


text:
Stock (food)

Stock, sometimes called bone broth, is a savory cooking liquid that forms the basis of many dishes – particularly soups, stews, and sauces. Making stock involves simmering animal bones, meat, seafood, or vegetables in water or wine, often for an extended period. Mirepoix or other aromatics may be added for more flavor.

Preparation
Traditionally, stock is made by simmering various ingredients in water. A newer approach is to use a pressure cooker. The ingredients may include some or all of the following:

Bones: Beef and chicken bones are most commonly used; fish is also common. The flavor of the stock comes from the bone marrow, cartilage and other connective tissue. Connective tissue contains collagen, which is converted into gelatin that thickens the liquid. Stock made from bones needs to be simmered for long periods; pressure cooking methods shorten the time necessary to extract the flavor from the bones.

Meat: Cooked meat still attached to bones is also used as an ingredient, especially with chicken stock. Meat cuts with a large amount of connective tissue, such as shoulder cuts, are also used.

Mirepoix: Mirepoix is a combination of onions, carrots, celery, and sometimes other vegetables added to flavor the stock. Sometimes, the less desirable parts of the vegetables that may not otherwise be eaten (such as carrot skins and celery cores and leaves) are used, as the solids are removed from stock.

Herbs and spices: The herbs and spices used depend on availability and local traditions. In classical cuisine, the use of a bouquet garni (or bag of herbs) consisting of parsley, bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, and possibly other herbs, is common. This is often placed in a sachet to make it easier to remove once the stock is cooked.

Types
Basic stocks are usually named for the primary meat type. A distinction is usually made between fond blanc, or white stock, made by using raw bones and mirepoix, and fond brun, or brown stock, which gets its color by roasting the bones and mirepoix before boiling; the bones may also be coated in tomato paste before roasting. Chicken is most commonly used for fond blanc, while beef or veal are most commonly used in fond brun.

Other regional varieties include:
 * Dashi is a fish stock in Japanese cooking made by briefly cooking fish flakes called katsuobushi with a variety of kelp called kombu in nearly boiling water.
 * Myeolchi yuksu is a stock in Korean cooking made by briefly cooking dried anchovies with kelp in nearly boiling water.
 * Glace de viande is stock, usually made from veal, that is highly concentrated by reduction.
 * Ham stock, common in Cajun cooking, is made from ham hocks.
 * Master stock is a Chinese stock used primarily for poaching meats, flavored with soy sauce, sugar, ginger, garlic, and other aromatics.
 * Prawn stock is made from boiling prawn shells. It is used in Southeast Asian dishes such as laksa.
 * Remouillage is a second stock made from the same set of bones.
 * Bran stock is bran boiled in water. It can be used to thicken meat soups, used as a stock for vegetable soups or made into soup itself with onions, vegetables and molasses

Health claims
By early 2010s, "bone broth" had become a popular health food trend, due to the resurgence in popularity of dietary fat over sugar, and interest in "functional foods" to which "culinary medicinals" such as turmeric and ginger could be added. Bone broth bars, bone broth home delivery services, bone broth carts, and bone broth freezer packs grew in popularity in the United States. The fad was heightened by the 2014 book Nourishing Broth, in which authors Sally Fallon Morell and Kaayla T. Daniel claim that the broth's nutrient density has a variety of health effects.

There is no scientific evidence to support many of the claims made for bone broth.

In popular culture
Baby Yoda sipping stock in "Chapter 4: Sanctuary" (2019), the fourth episode of the first season of the American streaming television series The Mandalorian, became an Internet meme, as the cuteness of the character's slurping made two other characters abruptly stop fighting.

title: Stock (food)


text:
The Fortune of War

The Fortune of War is the sixth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1979. It is set during the War of 1812.

HMS Leopard made its way to Botany Bay, left its prisoners, and sailed to Pulo Batang where the ship was declared unfit. Captain Aubrey and some of his followers are put aboard La Flèche packet to sail home for a new commission. A shipboard fire ends the months of sweet sailing and brings them into the new war.

The Fortune of War contains lightly fictionalized accounts of two sea battles in the War of 1812.

Plot summary
HMS Leopard sails from Desolation Island to Port Jackson where she drops off her few prisoners. Captain Bligh is already handled, so she proceeds to the Dutch East Indies station and Admiral Drury at Pulo Batang. Leopard is declared unfit for guns due to wood rot, and will probably be a troop transport. Jack Aubrey and his followers are to board the courier ship La Flèche, as his next command, HMS Acasta (1797), awaits him in England. The rest of the crew is left with Admiral Drury. Maturin learns the success of his scheme to damage French intelligence sources from Wallis, and relays the name of a contact in the Royal Navy, mentioned by Louisa Wogan. They join a cricket game, ended abruptly by the arrival of La Flèche, which also brings mail to them. Captain Yorke visited Sophia Aubrey before leaving England, bringing Jack a personal letter and gifts from her.

Aubrey knew Captain Yorke and Maturin quickly warms to this captain who travels with an extensive library and a piano in his cabin. At Simon's Town, La Flèche learns of war between Britain and America. Aubrey spends this time of sweet sailing teaching the young midshipmen while Maturin is engrossed in dissection of specimens from Desolation Island and New Holland with McLean, the ship's Scottish surgeon, passing their evenings with music. One night in the Atlantic near Brazil a fire breaks out on board and all abandon ship to the small boats. A few hot weeks later the boat carrying Aubrey and Maturin is picked up on Christmas Eve by HMS Java (1811), headed for Bombay and commanded by Captain Henry Lambert.

The watch sees a ship hull-up on the horizon, USS Constitution, which Java immediately pursues. Aubrey and others from Leopard man two guns but the fight goes badly when Java's foremast gives way. The American commander makes few mistakes and soon Java strikes its colours. Constitution returns to Boston to refit, having taken part of Java for its own repair, then setting fire to her. Captain Lambert dies of his wounds ashore in Brazil. Aubrey is shot in his right arm, and too ill to be put ashore. Maturin stays with his patient, and works with Dr. Evans, the amiable ship's surgeon. All of Maturin's collections, except what he noted in his diary by words or drawings, are gone. During the voyage Maturin talks with a French passenger picked up at San Salvador, Pontet-Canet. In Boston, Aubrey convalesces from his wounds in Dr. Choate's hospital, waiting for the next prisoner exchange. Jahleel Brenton of the US Navy Department questions him, but Aubrey puts him off, realizing now why his exchange is taking so long. Maturin is reacquainted with both Louisa Wogan and Michael Herapath, and then meets their daughter Caroline and Michael's father George. George is a wealthy merchant and a Loyalist in the Revolutionary War whose trade with China is interrupted by the present war. Maturin encounters Diana Villiers, still the mistress of Harry Johnson. He is a wealthy American slave owner from Maryland who is active as a spy for his nation. Johnson visits Aubrey who makes a comment about Maturin that reveals too much to the bluff spy. Maturin suspects that Johnson and Pontet-Canet have turned their attention away from Aubrey, towards him. He asks George Herapath to bring Aubrey a pair of pistols.

Aubrey watches the harbor from his hospital bed. Pontet-Canet tries but fails twice to abduct Maturin in the streets of Boston. After the second try, Maturin meets Diana in the Franchon hotel when Johnson is away with Wogan. While searching Johnson's papers, Maturin kills first Pontet-Canet and then Jean Dubreuil as they come to Johnson's room. Maturin finds that Johnson had intercepted Diana's letter to him. He offers to marry her to solve her problems of citizenship. Diana wants away from Johnson. Maturin sends a note to Aubrey setting up a plan of escape that night. George Herapath allows the two to hide in one of his larger ships. Then Aubrey sails a small fishing boat and he, Maturin and Diana meet the thirty-eight gun frigate, HMS Shannon (1806), entering the outer harbour on blockade duty and are taken on board by Captain Philip Broke, Aubrey's cousin and childhood friend. Broke writes a challenge to Captain Lawrence, the new commander of the thirty-eight gun USS Chesapeake (1799) lying in harbour, to fight one-on-one, which never reaches him. Chesapeake comes out in apparent pursuit of Aubrey and engages Shannon. The battle lasts fifteen minutes, until Chesapeake strikes her colours to Shannon. Aubrey leads a gun crew, his right arm tied to his body, while Diana sits in the forepeak and Maturin waits below with the surgeon in this victory for the Royal Navy.

Characters
British:
 * Jack Aubrey - Former captain of HMS Leopard.
 * Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, friend to Jack and an intelligence officer.
 * Sophia Aubrey - Jack's wife and mother of their three children.
 * Diana Villiers - love interest of Stephen and cousin of Sophia, living in Boston with Johnson.
 * Barret Bonden - the captain's coxswain.
 * Preserved Killick - Aubrey's ever loyal servant.
 * Babbington - 1st lieutenant in Leopard.
 * Captain Moore - commands the Marines in Leopard.
 * Mr Foreshaw - young midshipman on Leopard, killed in the battle aboard Java.
 * George Byron, originally a midshipman on HMS Leopard, acting fourth lieutenant after the epidemic. He brings his temporary commission papers with him fleeing the burning ship.
 * Faster Doudle - prime seaman on Leopard, played as wicket keeper in the cricket match cut short by arrival of La Flèche
 * Admiral Drury - admiral on station at Pulo Batang in the Dutch East Indies.
 * Wallis - British intelligence at Pulo Batang, Maturin meets with him.
 * Captain Yorke - captain of HMS La Flèche.
 * Warner - 1st lieutenant in La Flèche.
 * McLean - young Scottish ship's surgeon in La Flèche, also a skilled anatomist.
 * Captain Henry Lambert - captain of HMS Java.
 * Chads - 1st lieutenant in Java.
 * General Hislop - Governor-designate of Bombay aboard Java.
 * Captain Philip Broke - captain of Shannon.
 * Watt - 1st lieutenant in Shannon, killed in the action.
 * Mr Jack - surgeon in Shannon.

American:
 * Michael Herapath - Once Maturin's assistant on Leopard, he ran from Desolation Island with Mrs Wogan aboard an American whaler; now living in Boston, studying to be a doctor.
 * Mrs Louisa Wogan - an attractive young woman, American spy arrested in England, living with Herapath and their daughter in Boston.
 * George Herapath - father of Michael and grandfather of little Caroline, a loyalist in the US Revolutionary War, reconciled to the new country, successful Boston merchant especially in trade with China.
 * Otis P. Choate - Doctor in Boston who runs the Asclepia, a small private hospital where Aubrey recuperates.
 * Henry (Harry) Johnson - Wealthy American from Maryland travelling with Diana, keeps slaves; much involved with US policy and spying. Last seen by Maturin leaving Diana's house in Alipur (India)
 * Evans - surgeon in USS Constitution.
 * Commodore Bainbridge - commander of USS Constitution.
 * Jahleel Brenton - of the American Navy Department, with the same name as a recent Baronet in the British Royal Navy, Captain Jahleel Brenton. This led to Aubrey believing him a psychiatric patient on his first visit.
 * Captain James Lawrence - captain of USS Chesapeake immediately before the ship engaged with Shannon; previously captain of Hornet.

French:
 * Jean-Paul Pontet-Canet - tall Frenchman travelling to the United States from San Salvador on USS Constitution; Maturin met him years before near Toulon, during the Peace of Amiens.
 * Jean Dubreuil - French spy in Boston, first seen by Maturin in European capitals.

Ships

 * British:
 * HMS Leopard - a 50-gun fourth rate (converted to troop transport)
 * HMS La Flèche - a 20-gun sixth rate (caught fire and exploded)
 * HMS Cumberland - a 74-gun third rate
 * HMS Java - a 38-gun frigate (destroyed in battle, burned and exploded)
 * HMS Shannon - a 38-gun frigate
 * HMS Aeolus (1801) - a 32-gun frigate
 * HMS Belvidera - a 36-gun frigate
 * American:
 * USS Constitution - a 44-gun frigate
 * USS Chesapeake - a 38-gun frigate
 * USS President - a 44-gun frigate
 * USS Congress - a 38-gun frigate

Allusions/references to history, geography and current science
The two frigate actions including one Royal Navy ship and one US Navy ship are real events in the War of 1812: HMS Java against USS Constitution, and HMS Shannon (1806) against USS Chesapeake (1799) (Capture of USS Chesapeake). The fictional Aubrey and Maturin have roles in both in the novel, as accidental passengers on Java and then as prisoners of war in Boston who make a timely escape. The battle actions are transformed for storytelling effect by O'Brian. The capture of USS Chesapeake is discussed in an 1866 source mentioned in the Author's Note for The Fortune of War. The victories of the respective nations greatly raised the morale of their sailors during the conflict. For the United States, it proved that their ships could hold their own against the British, and for the United Kingdom, it proved that American ships could be just as easily defeated as the French, Dutch and Spanish.

Allusions to literature
In Chapter 7, When Maturin looks upon the two corpses in the bath, he reflects that this is like the end of Titus Andronicus, a play by Shakespeare where corpses pile up as revenge plays out. Then Maturin realizes that his situation is different, as he had had to kill or be killed by these French spies, one of whom had tortured to death two friends of his.

Allusions to other novels in the series
In Chapter 6, Stephen Maturin recalls on "the seventeenth of May" that he has been in love with Diana Villiers for "eight years, nine months and some odd days". He met her in Post Captain, during the Peace of Amiens, 1802-03. Though he seemed to know his strong attraction for her immediately in Post Captain, if the fiction is literal, he did not allow himself to fully admit it until fall of 1804. Initially he considered himself unworthy of her, and not in a position to ask her to marry him, which Sophia Williams had encouraged him to do, knowing her cousin's feelings.

The American Captain Lawrence is brought to meet Aubrey in hospital in Boston, in Chapter 7, to bring greetings from Lieutenant Mowett, himself recovering in hospital in New York. Mowett was injured when HMS Peacock (1806) was taken by USS Hornet (1805 brig) under Lawrence's command. Mowett had been a midshipman and poet in Master and Commander; Maturin recites some of Mowett's lines of original poetry. He was a favorite to both Aubrey and Maturin.

In Chapter 4, Maturin recalls first seeing Pontet-Canet at a restaurant above Toulon when he and Aubrey visited French naval captain and friend Christie-Pallière after leaving England during the Peace of Amiens, in Post Captain. Maturin detected that Pontet-Canet had a different regional French accent then, compared to what he affected in this visit to America.

Quotations
The changing nature of the connection between the Americans and the British Royal Navy is captured in Aubrey's expressions of gratitude to Michael Herapath for his help in their escape from the French spies, out to a Royal Navy ship in Boston harbor. The American Herapath had served as assistant to Maturin on the Leopard.

"Jack looked long and hard. 'At high water,' he said, 'I shall go into her and run out on the ebb. Will you not come with us, Herapath? I will rate you midshipman in any ship I command, and you could be the Doctor's assistant again. Things might be unpleasant for you in Boston.' 'Oh no, sir,' said Herapath. 'That would never do: though I am obliged to you for your care of me. I have ties here. . . and then, you know, we are enemies.' 'By God, so we are. I had forgot. I find it difficult to think of you as an enemy, Herapath.'" (Chapter 8)

Reviews
This book is sharply different from its immediate predecessors in the series, as it tells of escape and shipwreck, the intensity of intrigue during war rather than battles at sea, though much happens at sea.

"Jack doesn’t command a ship in this book, how about that! This is a book with a wrecked ship, a long distance open boat voyage with thirst and cannibalism, two naval battles, lots of exciting spy stuff, and a desperate escape. But it’s utterly different from the previous volumes, which have all been genre sea stories in a way this just isn’t. We were comparing this series with Hornblower earlier—it’s impossible to imagine a Hornblower volume like this. ... I very much like the whole intrigue with Johnson and the French and Stephen—it’s as exciting as the sea chases, but in a very different way. There’s a lot of very good Stephen in this volume—and some wonderful Jack malopropisms."

Publication history

 * 1979, UK, Collins hardback First edition ISBN 0-00-222498-4
 * 1980, May UK, Fontana paperback ISBN 0006159931
 * 1980, UK, Collins hardback ISBN 978-0-00-222498-7
 * 1991 W. W. Norton & Company Paperback First USA edition ISBN 0-393-30813-8
 * 1992, William A. Thomas Braille Bookstore Hardcover edition
 * 1992, Books on Tape; Audio edition ISBN 5555358717
 * 1994, W. W. Norton & Company Hardcover edition ISBN 0393037061
 * 2001, Thorndike Press Hardcover Large-print edition ISBN 0754015882
 * 2001, Thorndike Press Paperback Large-print edition ISBN 0754024490
 * Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull ISBN 1402591772
 * 2011, W. W. Norton & Company e-book edition ISBN 978-0-393-08849-6

This novel was first published by Collins in the UK. There was no US publisher until W W Norton issued a reprint 12 years after the initial publication as part of its reissue in paperback of all the novels in the series prior to 1991.

The process of reissuing the novels initially published prior to 1991 was in full swing in 1991, as the whole series gained a new and wider audience, as Mark Howowitz describes in writing about The Nutmeg of Consolation, the fourteenth novel in the series and initially published in 1991.

Two of my favorite friends are fictitious characters; they live in more than a dozen volumes always near at hand. Their names are Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, and their creator is a 77-year-old novelist named Patrick O'Brian, whose 14 books about them have been continuously in print in England since the first, "Master and Commander," was published in 1970.

O'Brian's British fans include T. J. Binyon, Iris Murdoch, A. S. Byatt, Timothy Mo and the late Mary Renault, but, until recently, this splendid saga of two serving officers in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars was unavailable in this country, apart from the first few installments which went immediately out of print. Last year, however, W. W. Norton decided to reissue the series in its entirety, and so far nine of the 14 have appeared here, including the most recent chapter, The Nutmeg of Consolation.

title: The Fortune of War


text:
Fernão Mendes Pinto

Fernão Mendes Pinto (c. 1509 – 8 July 1583) was a Portuguese explorer and writer. His voyages are recorded in Pilgrimage (Peregrinação), his autobiographical memoir, which was published posthumously in 1614. The historical accuracy of the work is debatable due to the many events that seem far-fetched or at least exaggerated, earning him the nickname Fernão Mentes Minto (wordplay with the Portuguese verb mentir, 'to lie', meaning "Fernão, are you lying? I am lying."). Still, many aspects of the work can be verified, particularly through records of Pinto's service to the Portuguese crown and by his association with Jesuit missionaries.

Early life
Pinto was born in about 1509, in Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal, to a poor rural family or perhaps to a family of minor nobility who had fallen on hard times. Pinto had two brothers and two sisters (and possibly other siblings). In 1551, a brother, Álvaro, was recorded in Portuguese Malacca. Letters also record that a brother died a martyr in Malacca. In 1557, Francisco Garcia de Vargas, Pinto's wealthy cousin, is recorded at Cochin.

He was related to the wealthy Mendes family, who were descendants of Jewish Marranos who lived in Portugal (which makes him a relative of the Jewish philanthropist Gracia Mendes Nasi). They had a monopoly on black pepper commerce in Portugal and some of them later moved to Antwerp in Belgium.

Pinto described his childhood as spartan. In 1521, hoping to improve the boy's prospects, an uncle took him to Lisbon. There, Pinto was employed in the household service of a noblewoman. After eighteen months or so, Pinto fled. At the docks, he was hired as a ship's boy on a cargo vessel bound for Setúbal. On the way, French pirates captured the ship and the passengers were set upon the shore at Alentejo.

Pinto eventually made his way to Setúbal, where he entered the service of Francisco de Faria, a knight of Santiago. He remained there for four years and then joined the service of Jorge de Lencastre, a master of the Order of Santiago and an illegitimate son of King John II of Portugal. Pinto held that position for a number of years. Although comfortable, it held no promise of advancement. Therefore, at twenty-eight, Pinto left to join the Portuguese India Armadas.

Voyages
Pinto's travels can be divided into three phases: firstly, from Portugal to India; secondly, through the region of the Red Sea, from the coast of Africa to the Persian Gulf; and thirdly, from east India to Sumatra, Siam, China, and Japan. Finally, Pinto returned to Europe.

First voyage to India
On 11 March 1537, Pinto left Lisbon for India via Portuguese Mozambique. On 5 September that year, he arrived in Diu, a fortified island and town northwest of Bombay (Portuguese since 1535 but under siege by Suleiman the Magnificent).

Pinto then joined a Portuguese reconnaissance mission to the Red Sea via Ethiopia. The mission was to deliver a message to Portuguese soldiers guarding the mother of "Prester John" (Emperor Dawit II of Ethiopia) in a mountain fortress. After leaving Massawa, the mission engaged three Turkish galleys in battle. The Portuguese ships were defeated and their crews taken to Mocha to be sold as slaves.

Pinto was sold to a Greek Muslim who was a cruel master. Pinto threatened suicide and was sold to a Jewish merchant for about thirty ducats' worth of dates. With the Jewish merchant, Pinto travelled the caravan route to Hormuz, a leading market town in the Persian Gulf. There, Pinto was freed by way of payment of three hundred ducats from the Portuguese crown. He was made captain of the Fortress of Hormuz and the Portuguese king's special magistrate for Indian affairs.

Second voyage to India
Soon after being freed, Pinto sailed on a Portuguese cargo ship to Goa. Against his will, Pinto was transferred en route to a naval fleet bound for the Mughal port city of Debal (modern Karachi) near Thatta. After enduring battles with Ottoman ships, Pinto reached Goa.

Malacca and the Far East
From 1539, Pinto remained in Malacca under Pedro de Faria, the newly appointed captain of Malacca. Pinto was sent to establish diplomatic contacts, particularly with small kingdoms allied with the Portuguese against the Muslims of northern Sumatra. In 1569, he discovered an Ottoman fleet led by Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis in Aceh.

Patani
Following Pinto's mission to Sumatra, he was sent to Patani, on the eastern shore of the Malay Peninsula. From there, Pinto made an unsuccessful delivery of merchandise to Siam. The goods were stolen by pirates who were then chased by Pinto and António de Faria. Pinto continued trading operations in the South China Sea, especially in the Gulf of Tonkin.

China
Pinto entered China from the Yellow Sea and raided a tomb of the Emperor of China. Pinto was shipwrecked, apprehended by the Chinese and sentenced to one year hard labour on the Great Wall of China. Before completing his sentence, Pinto was taken prisoner by invading Tatars. He became an agent of the Tartars and travelled with them to Cochinchina, the southernmost part of modern-day Cambodia and Vietnam. Pinto describes his encounter with a "pope-like" man, possibly the Dalai Lama, who had never heard of Europe. Pinto and two companions jumped ship to a Chinese pirate junk and were shipwrecked onto the Japanese island of Tanegashima, south of Kyūshū.

Japan

Pinto claimed that his 1543 landing made him the first European to set foot in Japan. He also claimed to have introduced the arquebus to Japan. It is widely accepted now, however, that several Portuguese traders, including António Mota and Francisco Zeimoto, visited Japan a year earlier. The firearm was reproduced and used in the Japanese civil wars. It was known as the tanegashima.

Pinto facilitated trade between the Portuguese and Japan. At one point, he was shipwrecked on the Ryukyu Islands. In 1549, Pinto left Kagoshima accompanied by a Japanese fugitive, Anjirō. He returned to Japan with Saint Francis Xavier, a Catholic missionary. In 1554, Pinto joined the Society of Jesus and donated a large sum of his trading wealth to the mission. In a letter, Ōtomo Yoshishige, daimyō of Bungo, offered his conversion and requested Pinto return to Japan. The letter arrived at the same time that Xavier's body was being displayed in Goa. Ōtomo did not convert at that time due to internal difficulties but did so later at the time Pinto was completing his autobiography. Between 1554 and 1556, Pinto returned to Japan with Xavier's successor. He became the Viceroy of Portuguese India's ambassador to the daimyo of Bungo on the island of Kyūshū. Despite Pinto's support of the Church in Japan, he left the Jesuits in 1557.

Martaban
Pinto returned to Malacca and was then sent to Martaban. He arrived in the midst of a siege and took refuge in a Portuguese camp of mercenaries who had betrayed the Viceroy. Pinto similarly was betrayed by a mercenary, captured by the Burmese and placed under the charge of the king's treasurer who took him to the kingdom of Calaminham. Pinto fled to Goa.

Java
On Pinto's return to Goa, Faria sent him to Bantam, Java, to buy pepper for sale to China. Once again, Pinto was shipwrecked. He may have resorted to cannibalism before submitting to slavery in order to secure passage out of the swampy Java shore. Pinto was bought by a Celebes merchant and resold to the King of Kalapa who returned him to Sunda.

Siam
Using borrowed money, Pinto bought passage to Siam where he encountered the King of Siam at war. Pinto's writings contribute to the historical record of the war.

Return to Portugal
On 22 September 1558, Pinto returned to Portugal. Fame preceded him in Western Europe due to one of his letters being published by the Society of Jesus in 1555. Pinto spent the years 1562–1566 in court looking for reward or compensation for his years of service to the Crown. He married Maria Correia Barreto with whom he had at least two daughters. In 1562, he purchased a farm in Pragal. Pinto died on 8 July 1583 at his farm.

Memoir Peregrinação
Pinto began his memoirs in 1569. The book was published posthumously by friar Belchior Faria in 1614. Although Pinto did not have the education of contemporary authors and did not reveal a knowledge of either classical culture nor aesthetics of the Renaissance, his experiential knowledge and intelligence enabled him to create a meaningful work. Pinto was critical of Portuguese colonialism in the Far East.

The vivid tales of his wanderings were so incredible and far-fetched as to not be believed. They gave rise to the saying "Fernão, Mentes? Minto!", a Portuguese pun on his name meaning "Fernão, do you lie? I do!"

The publication may vary from Pinto's manuscript (some sentences are erased and others are edited). The disappearance of references to the Society of Jesus, one of the most active religious orders in the Orient, is notable, as there are clear indications of Pinto's relationship with the society. Pinto's memoirs are just that, his memories of events, giving rise to doubts regarding historical accuracy. However, it documents the impact of the Asian civilizations on the Europeans and is a reasonable analysis of Portuguese action in the Orient (in comparison to Luís de Camões' Os Lusíadas).

The most controversial of Pinto's claims is his being the first European to visit Japan and his introduction of the arquebus to Japan. Another controversial claim, that he fought in Java against the Muslims, has been analyzed by historians. The Dutch historian, P. A. Tiele, who wrote in 1880, did not believe Pinto was present during the campaign, but rather that he wrote his information from secondhand sources. Even so, Tiele admits Pinto's account cannot be disregarded because of the lack of alternative information about Javanese history during the time. Maurice Collis holds the opinion that Pinto's accounts, while not entirely true, remain compatible with historical events. Collis considers Pinto's work the most complete European account of 16th century Asian history.

Legacy
In 1978, a crater on Mercury was named Mendes Pinto after Pinto.

A high school in Almada, Portugal, built in 1965, was named in his honour and in 2011, a 2 euro coin was issued to mark the 500th anniversary of Pinto's birthday.

title: Fernão Mendes Pinto