Maturin. Captain Randoph Miller – an Army officer who courts Christine Wood. Admiral Lord Leyton – Commander-in-Chief South African squadron who is also uncle of Captain Miller. Lieutenant Harding – First Lieutenant on the Surprise. Horatio Hanson – Acting master on the Surprise and natural son of the Duke of Clarence, the future William IV. Dr Amos Jacob – Assistant-surgeon and intelligence agent. Dr Quental – quarantine doctor. Awkward Davies – Able seaman who follows Aubrey from ship to ship. Preserved Killick – Jack's steward. Padeen Colman – Irish servant to Maturin who is close to Brigid Maturin. Mr Wells – Young midshipman on the Surprise. Captain Simmons – Captain of HMS Suffolk. Edward Heatherleigh – Christine Wood's brother and a renowned naturalist. Henry Wantage – Master's mate (although the character died in Blue at the Mizzen) Ships – Aubrey's flagship, a 74-gun man-of-war (named as in Blue at the Mizzen) Surprise – 28-gun privately owned frigate Ringle – a schooner, privately owned by Jack and used as his tender. Unfinished manuscript The book is the posthumous publication of an uncompleted typescript, published as a result of Patrick O'Brian's position as an accomplished author of historical sea fiction. It comprises the partially corrected typescript of the approximately three chapters completed by O'Brian before his death in January 2000, as well as a facsimile of the handwritten manuscript which continues beyond the end of the typescript. The facsimile of O'Brian's handwritten script includes his doodling of placements for a fictitious on-board dinner party. In a 1999 interview with Publishers Weekly, "O'Brian observes that he is already three chapters into his 21st. "I don't think I could rest easy unless I had a book on the go, you know," he says." Reviews Joseph O'Connor says this is "... a preparatory exercise, a kind of setting-out; the literary equivalent of the twinkle in the eye. One wonders what a stylist as accomplished as the late Mr O'Brian would have made of the decision to publish such an unready fragment, but reading it sometimes feels like an act of intrusion. You can't help but sense that he might have regarded its appearance as tantamount to arriving at the captain's table clad only in knickers." Charles McGrath, writing in the New York Times says "It's a keepsake, a souvenir, for those diehards who have already made the whole 6,443-page journey and want one last look