Testimonies

‘Wonderfully portrayed… the uncompromising detail of the scenery, the small, revealing exchanges of social life and the persuasive development of character are those of a master-novelist working’ Philippa Gregory, Sunday Times
‘Patrick O’Brian’s Testimonies makes one think of a great ballad or a Biblical story… In O’Brian, as in Yeats, the most studied literary cultivation and knowledge bring into being works which read as if they were prior to literature and conscious literary technique.’ Delmore Schwartz
‘The harmony between setting, character, narrative and method achieves an extraordinary power and intensity of emotion without ever betraying the slightest sign of effort. It is a story that does not so much speak as sing, with the haunting purity of the ancient rhapsode or the bard, yet in a voice as modern and direct as today’s newspaper.’ Godfrey Hodgson, Independent
‘O’Brian has a power of bringing near to the reader savagery and tenderness, beauty and mystery and boldness and dignity. He’s perceptive and skilled, but best of all he writes with passion.’ Eudora Welty
‘The perfection of its prose… the characters’ attitudes and motives, the delicate complexities of feeling, and the lyrical evocation of place make this book remarkable… Testimonies is a perfect tragedy.’ Jessica Mann, Sunday Telegraph

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.

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