Customer Reviews

Captain Horatio Hornblower

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Captain Horatio Hornblower is a collection of three short novels originally published in 1937 and 1938 as "Beat To Quarters", "Ship of the Line" and "Flying Colours". All are set during the Napoleonic wars roughly between 1807 and 1811. The great success of these stories led Forester to write a number of Hornblower prequels and sequels, all of which are still read widely. It also spawned a long list of successors, some of which are excellent although none fully measure up to Forester in my opinion.

Beat To Quarters introduces Hornblower taking HMS Lydia into the Pacific Ocean to insight a rebellion against the Spanish. The story takes a number of twists including Hornblower finding his ally is a madman, a change in the political situation and the introduction of Lady Barbara Wellesley, the fictional sister of the Duke of Wellington.

Ship of the Line finds Hornblower commanding HMS Sutherland for a cruise in the Mediterranean. Hornblower not only must face the French but he must deal with a superior officer who would like to see him fail.

Flying Colours begins where Ship of the Line ends. Hornblower is a prisoner in France and must find a way to escape.

I thought that I knew these stories fairly well having seen the 1951 film Captain Horatio Hornblower staring Gregory Peck. However the novel is quite different in several areas. Perhaps what surprised me the most was the level of violence, sex and swearing that was included in the novel. I hadn't expected the violence to be as graphic, the sex to be as obvious or the swearing to be present at all. The novel has a gritty realism that was not matched in the genre until the 70s.

Captain Horatio Hornblower was written when Forester was in his thirties and before he had thoroughly polished his craft. While it might have a few rough edges it is a tremendously powerful, action-filled novel. The shy, self-doubting, self-deprecating but outwardly implacable Hornblower is one of the great characters of adventure stories. If one were restricted to reading only one novel of "wooden ships and iron men" then that novel should be Captain Horatio Hornblower.

I can't believe that there are not more reviews here for these books, since they are among the best popular novels ever written. I first read them in my dim and far away past, lead to them by my love of historical novels. I believe these three were written in the late 1930s while England was under the shadow of the Nazi march to dominance. Naturally tales of the war against Napoleon would resonate, but the books have lasted because of the quality of the plotting and the characters. Forester excelled at setting up unsolvable problems for Hornblower with clever solutions that keep suspense high and satisfy the intellectual needs of the reader. The interplay of the characters is excellent. When I was reading these books, my father told me that some of the stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, and that he remembered people talking about them all over town. These are great books if you like history and a good plot. I doubt they will ever go completely out of fashion. (Note: These books are much better than the video series about Hornblower. While interesting, that series has some laughable period details and has elevated Hornblower to almost superhuman status. It's the Hollywood version. Compare that to the production value and details in the movie Master and Commander and you will see what I mean.)

I was introduced to the entire series of Hornblower books in 1972. I read them in order of hornblowers rank, Midshipman thru Admiral. They were all great, but the one I remember the most was Captain Horatio Hornblower. It began when he was Captain of H.M.S.LYDIA and ended when Hornblower, Lt.Bush and Coxswain Brown escaped back to England in H.M.S.WITCH OF ENDOR (they re captured this vessel from the French). It all began when the LIDIA captured the Spanish ship of the line Natividad on a dark night off the coast of South America only to discover later that England and Spain signed a peace treaty. Hornblower had to seek out the Natividad (which he had given to el Supremo) and sink or recapture it. He later met and fell in love with Lady Barbara Wellesly (the sister of the Duke of Wellington). Upon his return to England he was assigned a ship of the line the Sutherland. Once you begin reading this series of books you are compelled to read them all.

Some may say Hamlet or Moby Dick, I say Captain Horatio Hornblower is the best book ever written.

"Captain Horatio Hormblower" was first published as "The Happy Return" in 1937. It was then renamed "Beat to Quarters." These books, unfortunately, stop on the return to England. But "Beat to Quarters" is available on Amazon.com. There are more reviews there.

This is a great book and definately one of the best Hornblower books ever. All the ingredients for a great adventure story. Exotic locations, a mad dictator, romance, hardship, friendhsip and the big ship to ship dual with the Natividad is one of the best action scenes I've ever read (and I read a lot of Action/Adventure).

The whole Hornblower series is brilliant and I would recommend them to anyone who enjoys good rattling yarns.

I first thought the price was too good to be true! The price for the paper back was over $40. The Condition of the Book was remarkable and that made the price absolutely unbelievable! It was worth the price I paid and I think the company that sold it to me should have charged more but it is too late for that and I am VERY happy with the book!

I once read a Hornblower short story which wasn't very good, so it was with some trepidation that I read these three novels. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only are they well-written and thrilling, but they are also, at times, thought-provoking.

Fans of Star Trek, will instantly recognize the introspective and distant Hornblower as a partial model for Captain Piccard. Hornblower, like Piccard, must always keep his distance in order to maintain the respect necessary to maintain the chain of command. Forrester even has something like a "redshirt."

Hornblower's insecurity is really Forrester's stamp of originality. Paired with the violence of the story, it really helps to create a level of realism which is often lacking in other adventure stories. Even when the action is fantastical, the writing is so good that it never feels like a pulp.

The length of these books is very approachable. The shortest one is about 150 pages long. The longest one isn't quite 200 pages, and there aren't many boring stretches. No ones writes like this any more, and it is a shame.

My father was an Iowa farm boy but when he was in college in the late `30s, he became a fan of the early Hornblower stories as published in the magazines. When this omnibus volume of the first three novels (_Beat to Quarters_, _Ship of the Line_, and _Flying Colours_) came out, he bought it. And I inherited it -- having first read it in junior high and at least four or five times in the decades since. There were certainly well-received sea stories written before, but Forester reinvented the whole genre. Patrick O'Brian is a more subtle and much more literary writer than Forester, but without Hornblower, Jack Aubrey would never have existed. The adventure begins with Hornblower, in the navy since the age of seventeen (rather a late start, actually), in command of the LYDIA frigate on detached duty in the Pacific, which in 1809 pretty much still belonged to Spain. He's supposed to seek out and supply arms and aid to a reported rebel against Spanish authority, but the man turns out to be a raving megalomaniac who calls himself. In the process, he takes the 54-gun NATIVIDAD, a ship almost twice his weight in weapons. Then, for diplomatic reasons, he has to give it up to El Supremo -- and then, finally, Spain having changed sides in the war, he has to go and fight her once again. On the long voyage home, he has a passenger, Lady Barbara Wellesley, the (fictional) sister of General Sir Arthur, and a love affair ensues -- almost. The thing is, even though his officers and men think the world of him, and even though he has proven himself again and again a talented navigator, first-rate seaman, and indisputable leader of men, Hornblower has a very depressive opinion of his own abilities. He's extremely self-conscious of what others may think of him, he worries about his own personal courage, and he tends to attribute to good fortune those things which are actually the fruits of his own insights and careful planning. In the second book, Hornblower has been moved up to a 74-gun ship of his own in the western Mediterranean, and he has a good time creating consternation among the French in Septimania and Catalonia. And then he has to sacrifice his ship, more than half his crew, and his own liberty in order to keep a four-ship French squadron from causing its own havoc. The third volume sees Hornblower, the badly wounded Lieutenant Bush (always his right hand), and his coxswain, Brown, incarcerated as prisoners of war. But Bonaparte wants to make an example of them, so the three are packed into a carriage and sent off towards Paris. It's the beginning of winter and the chance arises to escape, so Hornblower grabs it. The rest of the story tells about them holed up until spring and then making their slow way down the Loire to the Atlantic, where they contrive a highjack a captured British cutter and fight their way out to the Royal Navy's blockading squadron. There are a few social attitudes and casual crudities in Forester's narrative, incidentally, that might make an uninformed reader squirm, but Forester was a product of his time, just like the rest of us. I recommend you read this volume first, but then go back to the first book by internal chronology (_Mr. Midshipman Hornblower_) and settle in.

I first read this book back in 1975. I read the entire series (in order), and couldn't wait to get my hands on the next one. It took tremendous fortitude not to read one in hand while searching for the next in line. C. S. Forrester also wrote a book named "The Captan from Conneticutt" which is equally good reading fun. Five stars??? I think not!!! I rate the entire series of Hornblower books seven stars!!!