The Life of O'Brian
Count Nicolai Tolstoy inherited the library of his stepfather, Patrick O'Brian, author of the acclaimed naval history novels. Sara Waterson pays him a visit and discovers a few family secrets. This article originally appeared in the Oct/Nov 2005 edition of Rare Book Review.
Down a quiet lane hidden deep in the countryside south of Oxford, an idyll of willow-studded meadows crisscrossed by streams, is the mellow stone house which is home to historian Count Nikolai Tolstoy-Miloslavsky and his wife Georgina. An impression of quintessential Englishness is tempered on entry by glimpses through to the hall, hung with sabres and with portraits of brooding Russians in Imperial officer uniforms, evidence of my host’s illustrious ancestry. I first encountered Tolstoy, who has published on subjects as diverse as Arthurian legend and Scottish history, in that oasis of scholarship the London Library; and I’ve begged an invitation to see his own collection.
In recent years his writing has taken a new direction by virtue of his relationship to the late Patrick O’Brian, author of twenty novels chronicling the exploits of Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin of His Majesty’s Navy during the wars |
following the 1792 French Revolution, renowned for their attention to historic detail and accurate use of period language. During World War II in bomb-ravaged London, Patrick Russ met and later married Tolstoy’s mother Mary, immediately changing their name to O’Brian. Following their death his stepson has taken on the role of biographer. His first volume Patrick O’Brian, the Making of a Novelist, which takes the story to the point in 1949 when the O’Brians depart for the Mediterranean village of Collioure, was published in the UK by Century last November and has just appeared on sale in America; the second volume is in preparation. It’s intriguing that although Tolstoy and O’Brian didn’t meet until 1955 when the former went in search of the mother he barely remembered, Patrick and Mary are referred to in his book from the moment of their marriage as ‘my parents’. Obviously the two authors forged a close relationship.
|
Items on the filing cabinets, include the O'Brians' fishing rods, bought in 1946 and used by them in Wales, square leather case, containing Patrick O'Brian's astronomical telescope, bought in the early 1970s, Catalan hunting bag, with string pouch, used by O'Brian for carrying whatever he needed in the mountains, his attache case. On the wall: watercolour of Fron Wen, the O'Brians' cottage in Wales, painted by Geoff Hunt for the cover of the reissue of Testimonies, O'Brian's novel set in Wales, presumably given to him by the artist [Hunt painted all the covers for the HarperCollins editions of the Aubrey/Maturin novels. The originals for these are now in the Maritime Museum at Portsmouth].
Following a delicious lunch in the former farmhouse kitchen with dogs underfoot, Tolstoy and I repair to a low building adjacent, once a wagon shed. His book collection is housed in two rooms connected by an archway: in the first is his large desk, in an alcove between the rooms is an antique stove faced by an armchair, and beyond is the room housing the bulk of the books and papers left to him by his stepfather. Ranged at the side are filing cabinets holding correspondence, and the many notebooks in which the author doodled continually. Several boxfiles hold a complete record of O’Brian’s publishing history meticulously kept by his wife Mary. Tolstoy has also obtained a complete copy of O’Brian’s diaries from his literary executors. Above and beside the cabinets and on a chest opposite are momentos of his mother and stepfather, with early editions of O’Brian’s books and of Tolstoy’s own. Against the far wall are shelves filled with several sets mainly in their original C18th or C19th leather bindings. “Are all these books at this end from Patrick’s library?” I ask. “No, although many are, as they are filed by subject. As this is a working library, I’ve mixed in the books which came from Patrick with my own”. It’s a tremendous honour to be shown these treasures, since there’s been intense speculation regarding the sources of O’Brian’s research: I wander up and down freely picking books from the shelves. “Could you tell me, if it's not too personal, when he gave you his books? I know he gave you odd volumes - did he give you the bulk of the collection after your mother died?” |
The books were bequeathed. “He always expressly gave me to understand the books would be mine”, replies Tolstoy. “Not only was I his stepson, but I shared most of his literary tastes so closely as to make the gift very natural. I remember once having a discussion with him many years ago, when he said it was better for collections to be broken up and sold when their owner died, as that gave another generation of bibliophiles their chance. So but for the fact that he knew his collection to be as dear to me as him, that presumably is what he would otherwise have done.” We discuss which books remain at the house in Collioure. “I’ve brought all the valuable books back here, and all the ones I might use for reference. There are still quite a few novels down there, that kind of thing. I don't think I mentioned that Patrick kept all his books in special boxes he and my mother made in their flat in about 1954. They were cleverly designed to hold books of similar sizes, and then assembled against the wall on top of each other in an irregular but pleasing pattern. As Patrick pointed out, this meant not only that they could be fitted in much more neatly, but also that it would be easy to move them if necessary by simply transferring them in their boxes. However this never happened, as the boxes are still at Collioure exactly as always.” I’m curious whether there was any distinction in the shelving between O’Brian’s books and his wife's? “Absolutely no distinction: the books were ranged more or less by subject”, he tells me. “I now kick myself for not having photographed them in situ before removing those I wanted here. But I can remember pretty well, as I was always reading them.” |
The volumes show signs of much re-reading; their value seems to have been immaterial to O’Brian. Indeed many, having fallen apart from continual use, were rebound by his own hand in canvas or in white vellum, carefully lettered on the spines in black ink, such as a much-loved complete set of the works of Dr Samuel Johnson. How did he learn to rebind his books, and where did he get the vellum? “The rebinding is neat, like everything he did, but eminently practical rather than beautiful” Tolstoy points out. “He told me once that he bought a job lot of vellum documents being turned out by a solicitor. I don't think from the scraps of writing still on them they were of any real historical value. I have an undamaged Indenture from Henry VIII's reign, which suggests to me that he set it on one side as too good to use. Many of his books became very worn from use - he was not as careful as me. Some spines he had properly rebound in leather.”
When did O’Brian begin collecting? “Very few books can be unequivocally identified as being acquired in his youth: no more than I refer to in my biography vol I. I list maybe all the books to which he refers in his 1945 pocket diary. Maddeningly there are no earlier diaries.”
The first book he mentions Patrick buying is an odd volume of The Justice of the Peace, and Parish Officer dated 1776, a guide to statue law. Does Tolstoy still have this book? “Yes, I still have the copy. In his diary for 19th June 1986 Patrick wrote: ‘extraordinary success with Burn’s justice, wch I have had man & boy these 55 phaps 60 years’. He was invariably extremely accurate in arriving at such reckonings.” So from his teens O’Brian treasured such miscellanies of historical detail; another childhood discovery was The Gentleman’s Magazine, volumes of which for 1743-45 Mary was later to give him in 1945. A later favourite was Isaac D’Israeli’s Miscellanies of Literature (London 1840). |
Tolstoy records that O’Brian described Treasure Island as ‘a masterpiece’. Rudyard Kipling was another obvious influence, given the subjects and settings of O’Brian’s youthful writings, Caesar and Hussein, published under his original name of Russ. “Patrick had them all. There may be some Kiplings uninscribed which he could have bought at an early age. But most (possibly all, I can't check here) are inscribed as belonging to my mother. What happened to all his early books? I used to think that he left them behind when he left his first wife. My present guess (no more) is that he disposed of many which he regarded as childish or unworthy in some way when he made the break in leaving Chelsea for North Wales. They were hard pushed for space at Fron Wen [their tiny cottage]. Of course he preserved his cherished copy of Wood's Natural History, for which he clearly nurtured strong sentimental attachment.”
O’Brian’s literary alter ego, Stephen Maturin, is of course a keen natural philosopher, with a particular interest in birds, on which there are several books in the shelves; another long-favoured source of information on wildlife was O’Brian’s 1792 edition of A General History of Quadrupeds with its fine Bewick woodcuts. I express interest that O’Brian felt it was essential to have original editions so far as possible. It’s clear from the biography that they couple were frequently in dire financial straits, yet these valuable books were somehow bought, and never relinquished. “He laid great emphasis on the atmospheric feeling gained by absorbing the look, smell, and feel of early copies” Tolstoy explains. “He didn’t mind especially about first editions, but liked ones published during or not long after the author's lifetime.” |
The couple lived so much in the atmosphere of the
C18th that even their cookery book was of the period. I lift down a large
edition of Elizabeth Raffald’s The
Experienced English Housekeeper, for the Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers,
Cooks &tc of 1776, neatly inscribed ‘Mary her Book’, in regular use in
their kitchen until the 1990s. Tolstoy touchingly describes how his stepfather
set about making a vegetable garden using such pioneer works as [Gervase] Markham’s Farewell to Husbandry...
(London 1649) and John Worlidge’s Systema
Agriculturae… of 1687. Hunting expeditions were advised by Colonel Hawker’s
Instructions to Young Sportsmen in all
that Relates to Guns and Shooting (1839), and even his precious clocks
repaired with the aid of The Artificial
Clockmaker published in 1732.
The Tolstoy biography bears out the impression that apart from his marriage and a few other close relationships, O’Brian seems to have sustained few intimacies with the living. Feeling singularly ill at ease in the modern world, he seems to have lived largely through his reading. Tolstoy concurs: “Patrick found solace in retreating to another age, where he could know whom he chose and be whom he liked. In such a world he could be a friend of Dr Johnson and Jane Austen, sail with Anson or Jervis, locating himself comfortably in the social hierarchy where he could be neither snubbed nor patronized.” One enduring friendship was with Walter Greenway, a former tenant of the Tolstoys, who arrived by chance as a neighbour in Chelsea in 1943. With this genial companion, Patrick shared a love of history, horology, and book buying and together they developed a passion for naval history. |
Voyage Round My Father The first title to be published in his O’Brian’s new name was A Book of Voyages (London 1947). Much of the end wall is taken up with his superb collection of early travel books, prominent among them the 23 volumes of abbé A-F Prevost’s Histoire Generale des Voyages, ou Nouvelle Collection de toutes les Relations de Voyages par Mer et par Terre (Paris, 1746). “Patrick certainly owned this magnificent set in 1945.” There is also Churchill’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, a set of Harris’s Navigantium atque Itinerantium Biblioteca (London, 1704), and the Rev. Richard Walter’s A Voyage Round the World, In the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV. By George Anson, Esq.; Now Lord Anson (London, 1762). Of this, Tolstoy adds “There is also the handsome accompanying volume of maps, which is relatively rare as the format is completely different. I would assume that he probably had them when writing The Golden Ocean [pub.1956].” |
O’Brian’s and Mary’s exchange of gifts of precious books – a mirror of their meeting of minds – and these jaunts with Greenway prompted a sustained period of bibliophile acquisition from the late thirties until the couple departed for France in 1949. A complete record of O’Brian’s reading and purchases exists from 1945: one entry could be taken as advice to readers of the novels: as the war ended, O’Brian was immersed in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and noted in his diary “I am reading him slowly, with an atlas, dictionary, & quantities of reflection and back-reference” – a process familiar to any Aubrey/Maturin aficionado. Evidence of O’Brian’s source material for his roman fleuve is everywhere on the shelves. Tolstoy reveals that he “had Bailey's Dictionary to check if a word was in use", and I am duly shown An Universal Etymological Dictionary (London, 1775). He acquired an 1811 Encyclopaedia Britannica “which gave the state of knowledge at the period” although Tolstoy adds he bought this late with just three novels to go. He gleaned other information from C18th editions of the Annual Register of History and Politics, and Henry Chamberlain’s 1769 History and Survey of London. Sometimes research worked in reverse: spotting a couple of volumes of Pierce Egan’s Boxiana, a Regency account of pugilism, I assume it was O’Brian’s. Did he own any other of Egan’s sporting chronicles? In fact the books always |
belonged to Tolstoy: “They are the original editions. The [other] Egans also are mine (I have a particularly handsome copy of Life in London), and Patrick referred to me for info when describing Bonden's boxing match in The Yellow Admiral.” There’s a tiny copy of The Shipwreck, A Poem, by Will. Falconer (London, 1783); it transpires this too, an obvious candidate for the inspiration for O’Brian’s poetizing Lieutenants, was always Tolstoy’s. O’Brian’s fictional physician Stephen Maturin - something of a self-portrait - is frequently afflicted by depression, so I was interested to learn that O’Brian loved Burton’s Anatomy and read it often – which edition did he have? “Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it is. With all the Kindes, Cavses, Symptomes, Prognosticks, and Severall Cvres of it (Oxford, 1624). I have it here. Patrick had it handsomely rebound in blue morocco, and I feel pretty sure he bought it before or during the War”. I wonder how the couple obtained books once they moved to France. Tolstoy recounts “My memory is that he bought relatively few old or expensive books between his arrival in Collioure and his latter years of prosperity. The biggest bouts of buying were during the War and the last decade of his life. He made great use of the London Library which sent him packets regularly. Sometimes he asked me to get him a particular book, and I always gave books I knew he would find useful at Christmas and other times.” |
I comment that Tolstoy must have what is now an invaluable complete set of O’Brian first editions. Were they all gifts, and are they inscribed? “I do! He gave them to me as they were published, with an inscription and often an accompanying letter inserted in the relevant copies. In every case I have the first edition, since Patrick sent me whichever copy he first received. However in 1973 our home was burned in a disastrous fire, when all copies up to that date were destroyed. These I eventually replaced with copies he gave to my mother, most of which bear inscriptions to her. I have grangerized my copies, pasting in notes in Patrick's handwriting at the appropriate places.” I ask if Tolstoy managed to get hold of the 'Russ' editions of Caesar and Hussein. “Patrick didn’t keep any work he published under the name of Russ, which was never mentioned in the household! He had none when I first stayed in 1955. To make my collection complete I have since bought all the 'Russ' works, but of course they’re not signed.”
|
Can Tolstoy expound on what this collection signifies in personal terms? His response is full of warmth: “My family accuse me with some justice of living in my library! The addition of Patrick's collection to mine makes it an invaluable source for research on almost any subject. You are right in supposing that it will never, or not for a long time, be sold. Fortunately all our children are intelligent readers, and our son Dmitri is set to be a professional historian when he completes his PhD. I dread to think what it is worth now; I’ve never had it valued. The financial value is meaningless to us.” |
Captain's Log - some of the naval history reference books that belonged to Patrick O'Brian
In
the 1930s O’Brian probably already owned Richard Beatson’s 1803 six volume
edition of Naval History and Military
Memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783 to which he later added William
James’s The Naval History of Great
Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793… (London 1837),
later to be mined to such spectacular effect. Another useful source was William Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine
(London, 1769) which Tolstoy feels confident was also bought during the war;
similar volumes were added in the 1940s and some much later in O’Brian’s
career, including his set of the Naval Record Society publications.
- Richard Beatson, Naval History and Military Memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783 (London 1803, in six volumes)
- William James, The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793... (London 1837),
- William Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine (London, 1769).
- Volumes of the Navy Records Society, inc:
- Sir Richard Vesey Hamilton (ed.), Letters and Papers of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thos. Byam Martin G.C.B. (London, 1898-1903).
- Sir John Knox Laughton (ed.), Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham; Admiral of the Red Squadron: 1758-1813 (London, 1907-11).
- W.G. Perrin and Christopher Lloyd (ed.), The Keith Papers (London, 1927-50).
- Sir Clements Markham (ed.), Selections from the Correspondence of Admiral John Markham during the Years 1801-4 and 1806-7 (London, 1904).
- David Bonner-Smith (ed.), Recollections of my Sea Life from 1808 to 1830 by Captain John Harvey Boteler, R.N. (London, 1942).
- Rear-Admiral H.G. Thursfield (ed.), Five Naval Journals 1789-1817 (London, 1951); The Storm at Sea: A Conversation between Jack and Tom, The Day after it Happened, with a Particular Account of the Reasons why Jack was not Afraid, when he Thought the Ship would Founder (London, n.d.).
- Sir John Knox Laughton (ed.), The Naval Miscellany (London, 1902-52).
- Edward Hughes (ed.), The Private Correspondence of Admiral Lord Collingwood (London, 1957).
- Commander W.E. May and A.N. Kennard, Naval Swords and Firearms (London, 1962).
- Christopher Lloyd (ed.), The Health of Seamen: Selections from the Works of Dr. James Lind, Sir Gilbert Blane and Dr. Thomas Trotter (London, 1965).
- Commander W.E. May, The Boats of Men of War (Basildon, 1974).
- Joe J. Simmons III, Those Vulgar Tubes: External Sanitary Accomodations aboard European Ships of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1998).
- Admiral Sir Gerald Dickens, The Dress of the British Sailor (London, 1957).
- John Howard, Master Mariner Extraordinary: The Life and Times of Captain Edward Theaker of Staithes, 1786-1865 (, 1995).
- Suzanne J. Stark, Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail (London, 1996).
- Tom Pocock, A Thirst for Glory: The Life of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith (London, 1996).