Clarissa Oakes

Clarissa Oakes

First edition
Author Patrick O'Brian
Cover artist Geoff Hunt
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Aubrey-Maturin series
Genre Historical novel
Publisher Harper Collins (UK)
Publication date
 1992
Media type Print Hardback & Paperback, Audio Book (Compact audio cassette & CD)
Pages 256 paperback edition
ISBN 0-393-03109-8 first edition, hardback & 0-393-31016-7 paperback edition UK
OCLC 25051419
823/.914 20
LC Class PR6029.B55 C57 1992
Preceded by The Nutmeg of Consolation
Followed by The Wine-Dark Sea

Clarissa Oakes (titled The Truelove in the U.S.A.) is the fifteenth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1992. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.

Glad that the penal colony is behind him, Captain Aubrey discovers a stowaway prisoner aboard near Norfolk Island. He deals with her before he allows the cutter from the governor at New South Wales to deliver his new orders to deal with a political situation on a Pacific island. En route, Maturin learns the key to finding the high level agent giving British information to the French.

Plot

Surprise sails eastbound from Port Jackson in New South Wales. Jack Aubrey is in an ill-humour as a result of the frigate's visit to the abysmal penal settlement - firstly, because Stephen Maturin's duel with an army officer antagonized the local administration until the governor returned, and secondly because Padeen Colman, Maturin's servant and an absconder, was rescued against Aubrey's wishes. Aubrey observes ribaldry amongst his crew and remains puzzled until he and Pullings find a young female convict, Clarissa Harvill, during the ship's inspection. She was smuggled aboard in Sydney by Midshipman Oakes. Aubrey is at first determined to leave them both on Norfolk Island, but lets them stay aboard until they reach a South American port.

The Surprise spots a cutter, the Eclair. Aubrey suspects the cutter seeks the runaways. He insists that Harvill and Oakes marry. Aubrey gives some fine red silk he bought for a dress for her, who wears midshipman's clothes. Martin conducts the ceremony, while Bonden hides Padeen. The cutter bears dispatches for Aubrey and mail for the ship, and a Captain whose father was surgeon on the Surprise, eager to see her. The mail brings many letters from Sophia and from Diana, leaving Aubrey with a secret to keep from Maturin, about his infant daughter. The Governor orders Aubrey to settle a local dispute on Moahu, a nominally British island to the south of the Sandwich Islands. The gun room feasts the newlyweds. Despite the delicious swordfish speared by Davies (after it pierced the ship), good conversation is impaired by the level of animosity existing amongst the gun room members, most visibly West and Davidge. The cause is jealousy over Clarissa, who has had sexual liaisons with several of the ship's officers. This ill-will spreads to the crew, who divide in pro-and anti-Clarissa factions. In the blue water sailing, Maturin befriends Clarissa Oakes.

The ship spots a British whaler at the South Sea island of Annamooka. Wainright, captain of the Daisy, tells Aubrey about the situation on Moahu. There is a war between Kalahua in the north and Puolani in the south, with the northern chief being supported by an armed privateer, the Franklin, sailing under the American flag, owned by Jean Dutourd of Louisiana. The privateer has captured the Truelove, British whaler. While the crew provisions the Surprise, Clarissa, who has received a black eye from Oakes, confesses to Maturin on their botanizing walk together about her being sexually abused as a young girl and later working as a bookkeeper and occasional prostitute at a brothel in Picadilly. These experiences formed her sexual outlook, indifference to something that gives no pleasure. Maturin explains the jealousy of men to her. When she mentions that she saw an aristocratic acquaintance of the late turncoats Ledward and Wray at the brothel, Maturin realises that this is the highly placed traitor he and Sir Joseph Blaine are seeking. He sends a coded letter to Blaine via Wainwright.

Aubrey drives his frigate's crew hard on the trip to Moahu due to their poor showing at Annamooka. On reaching Moahu, they meet the Truelove, now their prize, and a column is sent to intercept the fleeing French. The skirmish is won but Davidge and others are killed, with no survivors among the French. The Surprise then sails to the south of the island to defend Queen Puolani against the main body of French and Kalahua's tribesmen, as she agrees to accept the protection of King George. Aubrey sets up carronades in a cleft and there is a terrific slaughter of the enemy the following day. The Truelove departs, commanded by Oakes, with Clarissa on board bearing a copy of the letter to Blaine with her. The Franklin appears but sails away immediately, with the Surprise giving chase.

Characters

See also Recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series

Ships

Title in the US

Clarissa Oakes was published in the U.S. as The Truelove, which is the name of a ship in the novel.

Series chronology

This novel references actual historical events with accurate historical detail, like all in this series. In respect to the internal chronology of the series, it is the ninth of eleven novels (beginning with The Surgeon's Mate) that might take five or six years to happen but are all pegged to an extended 1812, or as Patrick O'Brian says it, 1812a and 1812b (introduction to The Far Side of the World, the tenth novel in this series). The events of The Yellow Admiral again match up with the historical years of the Napoleonic wars in sequence, as the first six novels did.

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews likes the plot, including the intelligent escape:

The musings and adventures of 18th-century sailors Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (The Ionian Missionary, The Surgeon's Mate, et. many al.) follow the winds to the South Pacific. On this cruise: a shipboard wedding and a Polynesian dust-up. With Britain between wars for the moment, Captain Aubrey shifts his flag [sic] to The Truelove, a merchantman with a military past, and sails to Sydney and points east on a leisurely semiofficial cruise. As usual, Jack is accompanied by his friend Maturin, physician, naturalist, and early intelligence agent, and, as on previous voyages, the crew includes Mr. Martin, a clergyman who shares Stephen's great interest in birds of the world. This time, though, there is a bird on board--a prostitute smuggled out of Sydney by a smitten young officer. She's bad news. Even after she is wed to the smitten and violently jealous Lt. Oakes, Clarissa sees no reason not to scratch the itches of her husband's messmates. Discipline goes to pot, and Jack decides to disembark the young couple at the earliest opportunity. But nothing happens quickly when one must wait for wind. There is plenty of time for Clarissa to consult her physician, who learns that the lady is left cold by the marriage act and, in discussing her depressing past, also learns the identity of a traitor in the highest level of government. When Truelove [sic] at last finds the wind, it is off to a Hawaiianish island and rousing battle to install a government sympathetic to his Britannic majesty George III. Intelligent escape. Not for the rushed.[1]

Publishers Weekly feels this novel will delight fans of the series:

This entry in O'Brian's late-18th-century seafaring series will delight fans, while offering newcomers a good place to jump in. Here Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are assigned to help a Polynesian queen in her struggle with a Napoleon-backed rival, and a female convict is smuggled aboard by a midshipman in Australia. (July)[2]

Dick Adler writing in the Chicago Tribune finds this novel a pure joy to read as it shares unmistakably original insights into the mysteries of the world:

Now comes The Truelove, the 15th novel in his Aubrey/Maturin opus, and it`s a pure joy to read-on its own or as part of the glorious whole. It was published in England as Clarissa Oakes, which probably sounded too Jane Austen-ish to American editorial ears. But it`s a perfect title, because the slim and lively girl who stows away on the HMS Surprise as it sails from Botany Bay is the real heart of O`Brian`s moving and erotic story. Her surprising and mysterious past threatens the calm of Capt. Aubrey`s tight ship, and the effect her presence has on everyone else aboard gives O`Brian a chance to explore their characters in exceptional depth.
. . . there`s plenty of action, including a remarkable battle with cannibals in which O`Brian sums up all the horror in one unforgettable image. But what lifts The Truelove into the highest ranks of fiction is what it shares with the rest of its author`s writing: page after page of unmistakably original insights into the mysteries of the world.[3]

Allusion to real places

The plot takes the ship to a fictional island south of the Hawaiian Islands, which were first known as the Sandwich Islands.[4]

Editions

References

  1. ↑ "The Truelove" (1 March 1992 ed.). Kirkus Reviews. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  2. ↑ "The Truelove". Publishers Weekly. July 1992. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  3. ↑ Dick Adler (12 June 1992). "Original Insights Into The World`s Mysteries". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  4. ↑ Mary Virginia Brackett; Victoria Gaydosik (2006). The Facts on File Companion to the British Novel: Beginnings through the 19th century. Infobase Publishing. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-8160-5133-5. Retrieved 17 June 2012.