New pair of Aubrey - Maturin due

Just received a letter offering discount on the next pair of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey - Maturin books.

The Letter of Marque and The Thirteen-Gun Salute both listed at £28.95 and due in June.

Dave

That is great! How much was the discount? 20%?

Not quite, £5.00 a book which works out to around 17.2%.

Dave

Any updates? I've just received my introductory set of Aubrey-Maturin, don't recall seeing those listed among the available titles.

Just confirmed: nine titles listed in my copy of Current Publications, ending with Treason's Harbour.

Try the website: four books have been published this (membership) year, since your copy of Current Publications was printed. I received the two latest on 22 June, but these were offered in advance, and at a discount, to buyers of the earlier books in the series. I believe they are now generally available.

So right, affle: I logged in for the first time after posting, and found just what you say. Has anyone heard if there's a schedule? I understand they've committed to the 21-volume sequence, which is why I've subscribed, but haven't heard if there's a set number of books per year, or if they trickle out erratically.

I got the first 5 for joining in 2009. The next pair I got in Dec. 2009. 8 and 9 followed in Aug. 2010. Then Feb. this year was 10 and 11 with 12 and 13 last month. Apart from the fact that they appear to be in pairs I think it seems to be erratic.

Dave

The schedule is four per year, two roughly speaking in the winter, and two in the summer - as I understand it from a conversation in the Members' Room a couple of years back. That certainly is the pattern so far. In the last year (2012/13) there will be just three to publish, but I have no information as to whether that will be three at once, or two then one, or perhaps they will find an odd off-series book - say The Golden Ocean - to round up the numbers.

Edited to add that I assume they will regard the series as 20 books, not 21 - the last unfinished book is no more than a sketch. I bought it when it was published: it was something of a rip-off, and would be sure to disappoint Folio buyers.

> 8 ". . . the last unfinished book is no more than a sketch. I bought it when it was published: it was something of a rip-off, and would be sure to disappoint Folio buyers."

It depends how much of a fanatic and completist you are! I have both the UK and US editions of no. 21! When I was in the Members Room the other day, the very charming gentleman thought it was highly likely that they would publish it "to complete the set". However, I don't think he was pledging this in any official capacity. We will see.

> 9 Oh yes, I had to have it, for the little it contained. But there was an awful lot of padding needed to make even a slim volume. I bow to your enthusiasm, boldface, in having two copies - the FS series will make my third set of the twenty, but I don't look forward to another copy of this. Unless... they could use the manuscript to give us an LE facsimile, perhaps? Or revive those nice little silk-bound miniatures?

I have the original British set and I am working on the Folio set. Do I presume that the third set is American? What is difference between the British and American. Colour vrs color? Perhasp we can achieve a Canadian set where both spellings are used and you cam black out the spelling you don't care for.

BY the way has any Canadian on the list received any material offering them a discount? Should I hold off purchasing them immediately? This from a person who has been burnt more times than I want to remember because I just HAD(!) to have the book in question.

> 12 Barton, I received an offer for Aubrey-Maturin 12 & 13 at $24 off (a 20% discount) if you order both of them.

> 11 I do have one odd American copy, Barton, but one of my sets is mixed 1998 uniform edition hardbacks with a few more affordable first editions, the other is just paperbacks, now gracing the holiday home. The 1998 edition was intended to be my permanent set, but the paper is not too good, and is beginning to age - all too characteristic of HarperCollins standards in its Murdoch years. So I'm glad to have the FS set to meet my re-reading requirements.

> 14 "The 1998 edition was intended to be my permanent set, but the paper is not too good, and is beginning to age - all too characteristic of HarperCollins standards in its Murdoch years. So I'm glad to have the FS set to meet my re-reading requirements."

That's exactly my position.

These two new volumes confirm the brilliance of the picture research work for this series. For those who do not have the pleasure of ownership, I should explain that the illustrations are images from the 18th and 19th centuries - watercolours and engravings and whatever - and each one has been linked to an appropriate passage from the 20th century book. There are about two dozen in each volume, and now 13 volumes, so this sleight-of-hand has now been achieved over 300 times. Quite amazing. I wonder if the task has been finished for the whole series, or whether someone, somewhere, is sweating on finding another 160 or so to finish the job.

Excellent pictures they are too! I also find the bindings and covers to be first-rate.

I've only glanced through the 1st four volumes, and look forward to coming across each set of illustrations as I read each novel, but at this point I think Mauritius Command to be top of these, and they're all good.

There's also a 5-volume set of the entire series (including the type-written text of 21) from Norton in the US, which can be found for about $110 - a veritable fortune when I purchased it as an undergraduate a few years ago. But I can't recommend it - the paper's too thin and there are serious errors in the text.

>19 parelle: You have brought back a bad memory about something I wanted to forget it. I absolutely detested that 5 volume set (I donated it to the local library.) and that is saying somedthing about a bibliophile.