Stephen Maturin, called by his Catalan family Esteban Maturin y Domanova, a Roman Catholic, is the illegitimate son of an Irish officer serving in the Spanish Army and a Catalonian lady.
26 Facts About Stephen Maturin
1.
2.
Stephen Maturin is cousin to the historical Lord Edward FitzGerald.
3.
Stephen Maturin received a largely Benedictine education, focusing on the Classics.
4.
Stephen Maturin returned to Ireland in his adolescence, and performed premedical studies at Trinity College, Dublin, and received further training in Paris, conceding to have "dissected with Dupuytren" while there.
5.
Stephen Maturin was in Paris during the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, of which he was at first an ardent supporter.
6.
Stephen Maturin had become disabused of political enthusiasms and was against the 1798 rebellion, in which he refused to take part.
7.
Stephen Maturin has travelled to Minorca with a patient who died there, leaving him penniless and stranded.
8.
Stephen Maturin's work put him in some difficult and dangerous situations, particularly when he was captured and tortured in Port Mahon in HMS Surprise, the third novel in the series.
9.
In 1802, Stephen Maturin meets and falls in love with Diana Villiers while he and Aubrey are renting a small estate along with several crewmates during the Peace of Amiens.
10.
Sophie encourages Diana and Stephen Maturin to express their feelings towards each other.
11.
Stephen Maturin saves her from her American "protector" in Boston in 1812, killing two French agents in the process.
12.
Stephen Maturin finally proposes marriage, but Diana is still hesitant.
13.
Stephen Maturin is despondent, but later strikes up a relationship with fellow naturalist Christine Hatherleigh Wood and proposes marriage relatively quickly.
14.
Stephen Maturin turns him down because she is disillusioned with marriage due to a poor relationship with her first husband.
15.
Stephen Maturin is described as short, slight, and dark-haired, with "curious" pale blue eyes and pale skin if not exposed to the sun.
16.
Stephen Maturin does become fairly dark-skinned when he travels to tropical climes, a result of his Hiberno-Spanish heritage and predilection for naked sun-bathing.
17.
Stephen Maturin is fluent in Catalan, English, French, Irish, Latin and Spanish, and on his travels, he develops a working knowledge of Greek, Malay, Arabic and Urdu.
18.
Stephen Maturin is habitually untidy or even disreputable in appearance; he spends as little as possible on clothes, preferring an "old rusty coat" unless the occasion calls for dressier clothes.
19.
Stephen Maturin uses part of his fortune to buy the recently decommissioned HMS Surprise, giving its command to Jack Aubrey when he had been framed for stock manipulation and temporarily lost his commission.
20.
Stephen Maturin is, like Aubrey, a member of the Royal Society.
21.
Stephen Maturin's interests are wide, but he has a particular interest in wildlife, particularly birds and their anatomy.
22.
Stephen Maturin discovers and names the hitherto unknown species of giant tortoise Testudo aubreii on a remote and uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean.
23.
Stephen Maturin is considered an expert in suprapubic cystostomy.
24.
Stephen Maturin is an excellent observer of people, a skill useful in his profession of physician and in his work in naval intelligence.
25.
Stephen Maturin has a wide network of friends, relatives, fellow students, fellow natural philosophers and, over time, those who work in intelligence.
26.
Stephen Maturin loves playing and listening to music, and whenever possible, he enjoys duets on cello with Aubrey on violin.