The Golden Ocean
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Narrated by:
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John Franklyn-Robbins
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By:
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Patrick O'Brian
About this listen
The first novel Patrick O'Brian ever wrote about the sea, a precursor to the acclaimed Aubrey/Maturin series.
In the year 1740, Commodore (later Admiral) George Anson embarked on a voyage that would become one of the most famous exploits in British naval history. Sailing through poorly charted waters, Anson and his men encountered disaster, disease, and astonishing success. They circumnavigated the globe and seized a nearly incalculable sum of Spanish gold and silver, but only one of the five ships survived.
This is the background to the first novel Patrick O'Brian ever wrote about the sea, a precursor to the acclaimed Aubrey/Maturin series that shares the excitement and rich humor of those books. The protagonist is Peter Palafox, son of a poor Irish parson, who signs on as a midshipman, never before having seen a ship.
Together with his lifelong friend Sean, Peter sets out to seek his fortune, embarking upon a journey of danger, disappointment, foreign lands, and excitement.
Here is a tale certain to please not only admirers of O'Brian's work but also any reader with an adventurous soul.
Critic reviews
"An entertaining and psychologically astute narrative....This early work has practically all the naval lore and sense of place that grace the Aubrey/Maturin books." (Publishers Weekly)
"A rousing novelistic retelling of a particularly colorful chapter in the history of the imperialist wars of the mid-18th century...Robust and exhilarating." (Los Angeles Times)
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Story
October 1772, Portsmouth. Sixteen-year-old Richard Bolitho waits to join the Gorgon, ordered to sail to the west coast of Africa and to destroy those who challenge the King's Navy. For Bolitho, and for many of the crew, it is a severe and testing initiation into the game of seamanship.
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This is *not* the book advertised.
- By Robert Bolin on 08-26-16
By: Alexander Kent
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Endurance
- An Epic of Polar Adventure
- By: F.A. Worsley, Patrick O’Brian - preface
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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"You seriously mean to tell me that the ship is doomed?" asked Frank Worsley, commander of the Endurance, stuck impassably in Antarctic ice packs. "What the ice gets," replied Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition's unflappable leader, "the ice keeps." It did not, however, get the ship's twenty-five crew members, all of whom survived an eight-hundred-mile voyage across sea, land, and ice to South Georgia, the nearest inhabited island.
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Best narration possible for this
- By Amazon Customer on 08-19-24
By: F.A. Worsley, and others
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Two Years Before the Mast
- By: Richard Henry Dana
- Narrated by: Bernard Mayes
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Henry Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.
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The Uncommon Common Sailor in the Age of Sail
- By Jefferson on 05-24-13
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The Sea and Civilization
- A Maritime History of the World
- By: Lincoln Paine
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 29 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A monumental retelling of world history through the lens of maritime enterprise, revealing in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, lake and stream, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world's waterways, bringing together civilizations and defining what makes us most human.
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Comprehensive
- By Than on 12-29-19
By: Lincoln Paine
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Six Frigates
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Stephen Lang
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military had become the most divisive issue facing the new government. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect American commerce against the Mediterranean pirates, or drain the treasury and provoke hostilities with the great powers? The founders, particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, debated these questions fiercely and switched sides more than once.
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BE ADVISED THIS BOOK IS ABRIDGED
- By George Carpenter III on 09-11-08
By: Ian W. Toll
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Quicksilver
- Book One of The Baroque Cycle
- By: Neal Stephenson
- Narrated by: Neal Stephenson (introduction), Kevin Pariseau, Simon Prebble
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe -- in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.
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Be aware of what you're getting into
- By David on 12-16-11
By: Neal Stephenson
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Moby Dick
- By: Herman Melville
- Narrated by: William Hootkins
- Length: 24 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.
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Excellent, EXCELLENT reading!
- By Jessica on 02-18-09
By: Herman Melville
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Temporal
- By: Julian Simpson, Richard MacLean Smith, Bec Boey, and others
- Narrated by: Nicola Walker, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Jessie Mei Li, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Original Recording
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In the not-too-distant future, a 21-member crew launches from Earth. Their mission: to establish a temporary colony on Mars. Little do they know that colony will become permanent–and the last stand of the human race. Because, without warning, every single person left on Earth simply...vanishes. Now, a thousand years later, the resources needed to sustain life are running out, and the very existence of the Mars colony is threatened. Humankind has only one option–to return to its home planet.
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It was ok.
- By Cregg Terasa on 08-06-24
By: Julian Simpson, and others
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And Then There Were None
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious "U.N. Owen". At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead. Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one...one by one they begin to die. Who among them is the killer? And will any of them survive?
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Dan Stevens is genius
- By Markie Ross on 09-17-15
By: Agatha Christie
What listeners say about The Golden Ocean
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joshua
- 12-22-16
Excellent all around
this early work shows just how great Patrick O'Brien was. All of the elements of an epic are here. he does a wonderful job of showing the Arcane world of the royal Navy. the characters leap off the page
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- Beach
- 03-06-23
Amusing high sea adventure
Loved the Irish men and their way of speaking. The humor in hard times and the love of adventure. A wonderful Patrick O’Brian sea story.
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- Debra B.
- 01-31-24
The Golden Sea
I enjoyed following the lives of Peter & Shawn as they sailed around the world & the experiences they had. I gave it 4 stars bc there was as a lot of sailing information I didn’t understand
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- Kevin
- 04-01-11
A pleasure to listen
This being my first audio book, I think I've been spoiled. What a wonderful narrator. I read all 21 Aubrey-Matruin novels but goingback to Patrick O'Brian's first was a joy. The narrators inflexions in his voice for each character allows the reader to identify with the character immediately.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Ben
- 08-22-21
The story was good, but the narrator was ok.
I’m a huge Patrick O’Brian fan and have read most of his books. I decided to listen to The Golden Ocean because I haven’t read it in about 20 years and thought it would be a good listen. I had forgotten how slow the book starts and it really doesn’t capture the true O’Brian sea tales that I love until about 3/4 through the book. The ending is pure O’Brian treasure, but it takes a long time to get there. My biggest complaint and probably the reason for the slogging through the majority of the first half is the narrator. He would be great for a story about an old man, but this is a tale of a young midshipman heading to sea. The old man’s voice can’t capture the youth of the story.
I’m still a huge O’Brian fan and always will be. I’m looking forward to continuing listening to his other works, just hoping the narrator matches the tale.
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- shana j shivers
- 08-14-21
Very well done!
Great story, excellently narrated. Characters are voiced wonderfully, reading pace very well done. O'Brian fans will not be disappointed. Highly recommended!
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- BAK
- 02-27-21
Absolutely brilliant. O’Brian is a genius.
The narrator entertainingly portrays all the different characters and their accents, bringing O’Brian’s captivating tale to life with all the author’s trademark dry wit, wealth of seafaring detail and trenchant observations of human nature. The only thing better is reading the book yourself, but that’s hard to do when you’re driving. A joy either way.
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- Jeffrey Bernstein
- 01-02-11
A wonderful prequel to Master and Commander
This is a wonderful entertaining prequel to the Master and Commander series. The writing and reading are lyrical and thoroughly engrossing. The text is spare and perfectly suited to the time of place of the story. One is transported to the British Navy of the 18th century with all of its cultural, ritualistic and stylistic norms. I have listened to the entire Master and Commander series three times and am now listening to Golden Ocean for the second.
This is very highly recommended for anyone who can appreciate excellent writing, reading and storytelling.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Jean
- 06-18-19
A Great Story of Shipboard life in 1740
I am a big fan of Patrick O’Brian (1914-2000). I have read all the Aubrey/Maturin Series. I thought I had read all of O’Brian’s books until I discovered “The Golden Ocean”. I understand it was his first novel.
The story takes place from 1740-44. Our protagonist is Peter Palafox who is a midshipman under Commodore George Anson. They are on a voyage to circumnavigate the world. The historical novel is well written, but maybe it is not as polished as his later books. O’Brian does an excellent job of portraying life aboard a Royal Navy Ship. This book was first published in 1956. O’Brian was one of the greatest writers of sea stories.
The book is eleven hours and three minutes. John Franklyn-Robbins (1924-2009) does an excellent job narrating the book. Franklyn-Robbins was a British Shakespearean actor. He was also a well-known audiobook narrator.
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8 people found this helpful
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- D. Cardona
- 11-07-21
Transported to a distant time!
Truly a tale of wooden ships and iron men. The character of these seafarers is described in wonderful detail by O’Brian. Many times I found myself transported to distant shores and the thrill of combat at sea. The detail of shipboard life moved me to find an application for my iPhone which rings the 8 bell watch rhythm. The narrator does an excellent job of voicing the different characters to the point of my being able to see them take physical form in my minds eye. A book to be shared by fathers with their sons.
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