Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. Now these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback by Harper Perennial with stunning new jackets.

Post Captain, the second novel in Patrick O'Brian's remarkable Aubrey/Maturin series, led Mary Renault to write: 'Master and Commander raised dangerously high expectations; Post Captain triumphantly surpasses them.'

Jack Aubrey arrives home from his exploits in the Mediterranean to find England at peace following the Treaty of Amiens. He and his friend Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, begin to live the lives of country gentlemen, hunting, entertaining and enjoying more amorous adventures. But their comfortable existence is cut short when, seemingly overnight, Jack is reduced to a pauper with enough debts to keep him in prison for life. He flees to the continent to seek refuge, but instead finds himself a hunted fugitive because Napoleon has ordered the internment of all Englishmen in France.

Aubrey's adventures in escaping from France and the debtors' prison will grip the reader as fast as his unequalled actions at sea.