Novelist Patrick O'Brian is best known for his Aubrey-Maturin series of historical novels set during the Napoleonic Wars. The series, which consists of twenty novels, follows the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend Stephen Maturin. O'Brian was born in London in 1914 and wrote his first novel in 1945. He was awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize in 1993 and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.