Wager and different main characters, including John Byron, then a midshipman, age 18. Mr Walter the chaplain wrote his own account of the voyage of Anson, noted by Clark (above) as one of O'Brian's historical sources for this novel and the interactions among the officers and crew. An original copy was at auction in 2009. In 1969, O'Brian published Master and Commander, the first book in a 20 novel series, known as the Aubrey-Maturin series. It is set in the Napoleonic Wars, begins in 1800, and features a pair of men who become the closest of friends, Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, physician and natural philosopher. In Post Captain, the second novel of the series, Aubrey recalls Anson, and asks Maturin if he has read Anson's book. Maturin has, but finds Anson's journey wasteful, as Anson noted nothing of the natural world that he saw on the journey. Aubrey is impressed that Anson made the journey and succeeded in it. The Royal Navy has changed since Anson's voyage, as have the politics of the world, with the thirteen British colonies in North America now the nation of the United States of America, the War of the Austrian Succession over, including the exit of France from nearly all its North American colonies, the French Revolution in the past, and the Irish Rebellion of 1798 also a past event. The Royal Navy and physicians have learned the need for fresh food and citrus to combat scurvy, a disease which killed so many in Anson's squadron, before this connection was made between scurvy and fresh food. The Napoleonic Wars endured so long, that they make a broad canvas of history against which the author sets the lives of his main characters, still keeping a sharp eye to historical detail and period language, which is a different structure than The Golden Ocean, which tells the tale of one long and daring voyage. In one sense, O'Brian views the long eighteenth century as the setting of his works, putting this novel in the same time period as the later series, while technically happening in two different centuries, the 18th and the 19th. They are both set in the Age of Sail, an even longer period of time than the long eighteenth century. Allusions to history and real places The story is based on a real event, George Anson's voyage around the world that began