SOURCE: “Napoleonic Complex,” in New Republic, Vol. 211, December 26, 1994, pp. 31–35.

In the following review, Hamilton-Paterson discusses O'Brian's writing style, focusing on The Rendezvous and Other Stories, The Commodore, and Patrick O'Brian: Critical Essays and a Bibliography.

Here we have that not unfamiliar figure: the first-rate writer who has worked consistently and prolifically for almost the past half-century, whose books have been greatly praised by famous people while remaining unknown to a wide audience, but whose time—at last—has come. No one whose time has not come is treated to his own bibliography fleshed out with admiring essays. And when the essayists are people as varied and distinguished as a British ex-minister for science, a Fellow of the National Maritime Museum, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, an ex-professor of English literature at Oxford and Charlton Heston, you know you're dealing with someone special.

But what kind of writer...