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Stephen Maturin () is a fictional character in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. The series portrays his career as a physician, naturalist and spy in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and the long pursuit of his beloved Diana Villiers.
Maturin was played by Paul Bettany in the 2003 film and by Nigel Anthony and Richard Dillane in the BBC Radio 4 adaptations of O'Brian's novels. Bettany was nominated for a British Academy Film Award for his performance.
He was in Paris during the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, of which he was at first an ardent supporter. Returning to Ireland he was a member of the United Irishmen. While in Ireland he became engaged to a woman called Mona, who died in unspecified circumstances. He had become disabused of political enthusiasms and was against the 1798 rebellion, in which he refused to take part.
As a passionate advocate of Catalan independence and a resolute opponent of Napoleon Tyrant, Maturin had become involved in Espionage, and as he begins his career with the Royal Navy, he becomes a valued volunteer secret agent for the Admiralty. His political and intelligence missions are of such vital importance that Jack Aubrey is often sent to far-flung corners of the world primarily to discreetly allow his apparent ship's surgeon to perform a task for the British government. His 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. While being held by French intelligence agents, Maturin was subjected to the rack (among other implements), making him a temporary invalid and permanently damaging his hands. Aubrey leads a cutting-out mission to save his friend, who spends the next few months recuperating. The extent of the torture is revealed slowly across the novels following it.
In 1802, 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. Diana's cousin, Sophia Williams, becomes close friends with Maturin and eventually marries Aubrey. Sophie encourages Diana and (particularly) Stephen to express their feelings towards each other. However, Maturin does not risk a rejection, and Diana leaves on the first of what becomes a series of affairs that take her around the world, leading to a years-long and extremely frustrating pursuit by Maturin. He saves her from her American "protector" in Boston in 1812, killing two French agents in the process. He finally proposes marriage, but Diana is still hesitant. They eventually do marry in 1813 after she trades her most valuable diamond in exchange for his freedom from a French prison. They have a daughter, Brigid, who shows signs of being autism before seemingly overcoming her issues. Diana dies in a coach accident in 1815 before the opening of The Hundred Days. Maturin is despondent, but later strikes up a relationship with fellow naturalist Christine Hatherleigh Wood and proposes marriage relatively quickly. She turns him down because she is disillusioned with marriage due to a poor relationship with her first husband. However, they remain close friends, and she becomes close to the Aubrey family and Maturin's daughter Brigid after spending time with them at the Aubrey estate. In the unfinished last novel, their relationship is unresolved.
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. As a physician, he often wears an old periwig over his sparse close-cropped hair. His frugal personal habits persist despite a considerable share of prize money earned over the years, and a fortune inherited from his Catalan godfather in The Reverse of the Medal. He 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. Surprise is employed as a letter of marque, and later as His Majesty's Hired Vessel when Aubrey is restored to the Navy List.
As well as his activities as a physician and agent, Maturin is a celebrated natural philosopher in the age of scientific discovery. He is, like Aubrey, a member of the Royal Society. His interests are wide, but he has a particular interest in wildlife, particularly birds and their anatomy. He discovers and names the hitherto unknown species of giant tortoise Testudo aubreii on a remote and uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean. An unending frustration for him is to be pulled away from the flora and fauna never before seen by a scientific eye, for the naval mission on which the ship travels. This is most poignant when he and his assistant Martin are promised time to explore and collect samples in the Galapagos Islands, which permission is abruptly rescinded when HMS Surprise must sail immediately on information as to where USS Norfolk can be found, the target of Aubrey's mission in The Far Side of the World. He is considered an expert in suprapubic cystostomy (spelled "cystotomy", without the "s").
Dr. Maturin is prone to self-medication. While pining over Diana, he becomes addicted to opium in the form of a tincture of laudanum. In The Letter of Marque he states his own "moderate dose" is "a thousand drops", when twenty-five drops is a usual dose for a man in pain; in Desolation Island it is implied that he daily takes eighteen thousand drops. Later, he switches to coca leaves, and is a frequent user of khat and tobacco and a devotee of particularly strong coffee with his breakfast.
Maturin is an excellent observer of people, a skill useful in his profession of physician and in his work in naval intelligence. He has a wide network of friends, relatives, fellow students, fellow natural philosophers and, over time, those who work in intelligence. He loves playing and listening to music, and whenever possible, he enjoys duets on cello with Aubrey on violin.
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