Patrick O’Brian’s many novels include Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore, in addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series. O’Brian wrote acclaimed biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and translated many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Lacouture’s biography of Charles de Gaulle. Mr. O’Brian died in January 2000.