Patrick O’Brian, the author of the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels, would have been 104 years old today. Mr. O’Brian passed away in 2000 but left behind a treasure of twenty meticulously researched historical sea novels set in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The books center on the friendship and adventures of its two main characters: Jack Aubrey, a British naval officer, and Stephen Maturin, the ship’s surgeon, naturalist, and part-time intelligence agent.