Richard Temple Patrick O'Brian 9780007225675

This is the story of Richard Temple - prisoner of war, sometime adventurer, lover and artist - told with insight, empathy and drama by one of the world's master storytellers.

Captive in a brutal German prison towards the end of World War II, Richard Temple has been stripped of everything that once defined him: pride, courage, his very identity have all been surrendered in a desperate bid to protect his secrets from the Nazis.

But with the real Richard Temple suppressed to the point of near-extinction, a sudden respite in his torture allows him a moment of rare release, when he can lower his guard and remember who he is. Huddled in his cell, too badly beaten to move, the action of the novel takes place in the Richard's mind as he retraces a convoluted course from an unhappy childhood, through a vague and uncertain adolescence to a complex, compromised adulthood, shot through with artistic sensibility and the myriad impulses that make a man.

Patrick O'Brian's signature combination of narrative flair, intuitive sympathy and psychological insight make this a fascinating exploration of how passive resistance can be a form of courage and what it truly means to be a hero.

Patrick O'Brian, until his death in 2000, was one of our greatest contemporary novelists. He is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He is the author of many other books including Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime's contribution to literature. In the same year he was awarded the CBE. In 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He lived for many years in South West France and he died in Dublin in January 2000.

'You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.' Irish Times

'The best historical novels ever written.' New York Times

Any contemporary novelist should recognize in Patrick O'Brian a Master of the Art.' Sunday Telegraph