Patrick O’Brian’s handwritten manuscript draft for the last unfinished Aubrey Maturin novel

Patrick O’Brian’s handwritten manuscript draft for Chapters I and II of “XXI,” the 21st and final unfinished Aubrey Maturin novel, is the first in our new regular Rare Books of the Week series.

It will be auctioned on 10 July as part of Christie’s Valuable Books and Manuscripts auction, along with accompanying handwritten sketches of the work; the estimate is between £10,000 and £15,000.

The heavily corrected drafts by O’Brian (1914-2000) in black and occasional blue ink comprise 47 leaves, with text on the front and occasional sentences and notes on the back. They date from early May to December 1999 and include details of 26 November when, while writing at Trinity College Dublin, he appears to have misplaced his draft of Chapter III.

The Last Unfinished Journey of Jack Aubrey was published posthumously in 2004, based on the partially corrected typescript of the three chapters completed by O’Brian, followed by a facsimile of the manuscript sequel. It included an editor’s note by Starling Lawrence and an afterword by Richard Snow, with a foreword by the politician Lord Waldegrave in the British edition. The journalist and critic Charles McGrath described it in the New York Times as “a keepsake, a souvenir for those die-hard fans who have already completed the entire 6,443-page journey and want to catch a final glimpse of Jack and Stephen as they embark on another mission.”