Editing Master and Commander (section)

===Later reviews===

As the series of novels expanded, single-volume reviews became less common and reviewers tended to prefer retrospectives of the entire series to date.{{sfn|Bennett|1994|p=160}} As one reviewer noted, "The best way to think of these novels is as a single 5,000-page book".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1993/12/19/the-wine-dark-seaby-patrick-obriannorton-261-pages/|title=The Wine-Dark Sea By Patrick O'Brian |first=Patrick T |last=Reardon |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |access-date=13 February 2015 |date=13 December 1993}}</ref>

Although ''Master and Commander'' and its immediate sequels had received at first a somewhat muted reception in the US, in Britain and Ireland the voices of praise continued to increase and gradually became dominant.{{sfn|Bennett|1994|pp=159–160}} By 2000, O'Brian's reputation was such that his American biographer [[Dean King]] was able to place ''Master and Commander'' at the start of what he called the author's magnum opus, a twenty-novel series that has become perhaps the best-loved ''[[Novel sequence|roman fleuve]]'' of the twentieth century: "[an] epic of two heroic yet believably realistic men that would in some ways define a generation".{{sfn|King|2000|p=207}}

Following O'Brian's death in 2000, [[Kevin Myers]] recalled in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' his first reading of this and the subsequent two novels in the series: "the most glorious literary mixture ever – Jane Austen meets Gray's Anatomy meets John Buchan meets Apothecaries' Gazetteer. The author's cast of characters is Dickensian in its scope, but of greater subtlety and sophistication in its portrayal."<ref name=Telegraph2000>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4719636/OBrian-the-most-Irish-Englishman.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121121010926/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4719636/OBrian-the-most-Irish-Englishman.html |archive-date=21 November 2012 |first=Kevin |last=Myers |author-link=Kevin Myers |location=London |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |title=O'Brian: the most Irish Englishman |date=22 January 2000 |access-date=17 January 2018 }}</ref>

According to [[Richard Snow]] in 2004, the first meeting between Aubrey and Maturin (with which the novel opens) led to "the greatest friendship of modern literature". Snow quotes Fredric Smoler, professor of history and literature, in a [[William Shakespeare|Shakespearean]] comparison: "It's like [[Prince Hal]] meeting [[Falstaff]]".<ref name="Snow2010">{{Cite book |title="Afterword by Richard Snow", in The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey |last=Snow |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Snow | publisher=HarperCollin |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-00-735843-4 |edition=Paperback  |location=London |pages=145–146}}</ref>

Writing in 2013, the author [[Nicola Griffith]] professed herself smitten: "In these books every reader who loves fiction both intellectually and viscerally will find something to treasure – and every writer something to envy. They will sweep you away and return you delighted, increased and stunned". She noted that while many reviewers have compared O'Brian to C S Forester, such comparisons are 'nonsense' – "This is Jane Austen on a ship of war, with the humanity, joy and pathos of Shakespeare".<ref name="Griffith">{{Cite web |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/12/01/246427056/a-skeptic-is-swept-away-by-the-bromance-at-sea-in-master |title=A Skeptic Is Swept Away by the Bromance-At-Sea In 'Master' |last=Griffith |first=Nicola |author-link=Nicola Griffith |website=NPR Books |date=1 December 2013 |access-date=1 March 2017}}</ref>