Dean King tells the story of a man born Richard Patrick Russ, who first achieved recognition as an adolescent with a series of popular adventure stories. After the Second World War, he emerged as Patrick O'Brian, a writer of dark short stories and highly literary novels, who also enjoyed success as a translator and biographer. Slowly O'Brian's persona took form, until his ultimate triumphant arrival as a masterful historical novelist and chronicler of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars.
O'Brian's past - both real and imagined - is linked directly to his writing, as he drew deeply on the painful events of his early life. Each one of the characters in his books is wholly original, yet in each can be heard echoes of O'Brian's own history.
