Which it’s a map of Aubrey-Maturin’s Port Mahon

Master and Commander, the first of Patrick O’Brian’s epic series of naval fiction featuring Jack Aubrey, a Royal Navy Officer, and Stephen Maturin, his friend, a naval surgeon and spy, starts off in Port Mahon in Menorca. Much of the first book is spent in and around Mahon, a British Naval Base at the time the book is set, and the series returns there on a number of occasions throughout its 20 books.

I’m a big fan of the books (and the 2003 film), and am coming towards the end of my first run through the series (or, my first circumnavigation). So I thought a map was in order, and where it all started seemed like a fitting place.

I decided to base the map symbology in the style of the Ordnance Survey’s 6 inch maps of Ireland (such as at Howth). I also took inspiration from some historical charts of Dublin Bay (there’s a great gallery of them here; the ones from 1800 by J. Cowan and by Captain William Bligh are particularly nice). The title text I adapted from this 1797 chart of West Falkland Island, from a Royal Navy survey. In the books, Aubrey often takes some time to carry out some hydrographic surveying when he finds some time, so I figured perhaps he might have surveyed around the harbour at some point, providing some much needed information for this new map.

Mahón today is surely different from Port Mahon of the early 1800s, and I wanted to make it reasonably accurate to the time of the books. The website OldMapsOnline was really helpful here, particularly this 1836 map, and this one from 1764. Also coming in handy were Google Earth and Google Street View.

I didn’t just want to draw an old map of Port Mahon though, I wanted to tie it specifically to the world of Aubrey and Maturin. Some of the key locations from the books are shown, such as the Governor’s House, where Aubrey and Maturin first meet, or the headland of La Mola, often the first or last point of Menorca they see coming or going from the harbour. This blog post from trailoftheimmortalmemory was invaluable here, as were the resources listed on The Gunroom website, particularly this amazing series text search page.

Anyway, this was very much a personal project I wanted to do coming towards the finish of my first journey through the books, but if any other fans find this, I’d love to hear what you think!