Description
Book SynopsisBeasts Royal is the second book written by Patrick O'Brian made available, at last, for the first time since the 1930s and elegantly repackaged.On the indigo waters of the South Sea, the crew of a schooner are attacked by a man-eating tiger-shark. In the humid depths of the African jungle, a thirty-foot python plots to rid himself of his rival, a wily old crocodile. Amid the heat and dust of the Punjab, the snake-charmer Hussein escapes into the forest on the elephant that he trained when a mahout in his youth.With the dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian would come to be loved for, we see the drama and tragedies of the natural world unfold for these, as well as other birds and beasts, in these twelve tales of animal adventure that would appear together in 1934 as the author's second book.O'Brian's debut, Caesar, had been published in 1930 and became an instant success, seeing him hailed as the boy-Thoreau'. His second novel, Hussein, would expand upon one of the stories includ
Trade Review‘Both books are full of the fantasy that has made O’Brian’s seafaring yarns such a success. Like them, they are full of engaging adventures, curious lore, fond descriptions of food and scenes of battle… Caesar makes delightful, often hilarious reading… Hussein is more sophisticated. Here fully thirty years before Master and Commander was published is the unmistakable texture of O’Brian’s historical fiction. Hussein has it all: the immersion in another world, full of local colour, the delight in a specialised vocabulary, the relish of male camaraderie, travel, treasure and fighting.’
David Sexton, Evening Standard
‘O’Brian admirers can now appreciate another dimension to his writing’ Alex O’Connell, The Times
