A Life

by Patrick O'Brian

 

One of our greatest writers about the sea has written an engrossing story of one of history's legendary maritime explorers. Patrick O'Brian's life of Joseph Banks, naturalist, explorer, and co-founder of Australia, is narrative history at its finest. Published to rave reviews, the biography reveals Banks to be a man of enduring importance and establishes itself as a classic history of exploration.

 

"It is in his description of that arduous three-year voyage [on the ship Endeavor] that Mr. O'Brian is at his most brilliant. . . . He makes us understand what life within this wooden world was like, with its 94 male souls, two dogs, a cat and a goat."

—The New York Times