O'Brian's profile has also never been higher. He was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime's contribution to literature. Interest in him continues unabated both in the UK and the US (he is Norton's top-selling novelist). For the first time ever every single Aubrey-Maturin novel will be available simultaneously in hardback with striking new jackets as all titles are reissued during 1998. 'This is no mere sea story. It is history as it must have felt... Take up these books and you will share their dangers, taste their food and wine, tremble through their terrible battles, and understand for the first time the exacting and harsh nature of life in the Napoleonic era...' Peter Hitchens, Daily Express