Testimonies

Back in print and now in hardback, the deeply personal and ingenious literary first novel written under Patrick O’Brian’s own name, newly introduced by Nikolai Tolstoy.

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‘Wonderfully portrayed… the uncompromising detail of the scenery, the small, revealing exchanges of social life and the persuasive development of character are those of a master-novelist working’ Philippa Gregory, Sunday Times
‘Patrick O'Brian's Testimonies makes one think of a great ballad or a Biblical story… In O'Brian, as in Yeats, the most studied literary cultivation and knowledge bring into being works which read as if they were prior to literature and conscious literary technique.’ Delmore Schwartz
‘The harmony between setting, character, narrative and method achieves an extraordinary power and intensity of emotion without ever betraying the slightest sign of effort. It is a story that does not so much speak as sing, with the haunting purity of the ancient rhapsode or the bard, yet in a voice as modern and direct as today's newspaper.’ Godfrey Hodgson, Independent
‘O’Brian has a power of bringing near to the reader savagery and tenderness, beauty and mystery and boldness and dignity. He's perceptive and skilled, but best of all he writes with passion.’ Eudora Welty
‘The perfection of its prose… the characters’ attitudes and motives, the delicate complexities of feeling, and the lyrical evocation of place make this book remarkable… Testimonies is a perfect tragedy.’ Jessica Mann, Sunday Telegraph