The Earthly Paradise [Import] [Paperback]

C.S. Forester (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New Impression edition (November 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140018166
• ISBN-13: 978-0140018165
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

More About the Author

C. S. Forester (1899-1966) wrote several novels with military and naval themes, including The African Queen, The Barbary Pirates, The General, The Good Shepherd, The Gun, The Last Nine Days of the "Bismarck," and Rifleman Dodd. But Forester is best known as the creator of Horatio Hornblower, a British naval genius of the Napoleonic era, whose exploits and adventures on the high seas Forester chronicled in a series of eleven acclaimed historical novels. Over the years Hornblower has proved to be one of the most beloved and enduring fictional heroes in English literature, his popularity rivaled only by Sherlock Holmes.

Born Cecil Louis Troughton Smith in Cairo, Egypt, Forester grew up in London. At the start of World War II he traveled on behalf of the British government to America, where he produced propaganda encouraging the United States to remain on Britain's side. After the War, Forester remained in America and made Berkeley, California, his home.

The character of Horatio Hornblower was born after Forester was called to Hollywood to write a pirate film. While the script was being drafted, another studio released Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn, based on the same historical incidents about which Forester was writing. Rather than seek another movie project, and to avoid an impending paternity suit, Forester jumped aboard a freighter bound for England. By the end of the voyage he had outlined Beat to the Quarters, which introduced the now legendary character Hornblower, Bush, and Lady Barbara.

Forester died in 1966 while working on Hornblower During the Crisis.

Back Bay's editions of the Hornblower novels are numbered according to the chronology of Hornblower's life and career, not according to the sequence in which they were written. The series is comprised of the following titles:


Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
Lieutenant Hornblower
Hornblower and the Hotspur
Hornblower During the Crisis
Hornblower and the Atropos
Beat to Quarters
Ship of the Line
Flying Colours
Commodore Hornblower
Lord Hornblower
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Christopher Columbus in Trinidad, Hispanola, and Haiti, April 14, 2005

By 

Ralph White (New England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

C.S. Forester's fiftheenth novel, written in 1940, features Admiral Columbus in command of the Holy Name, on his third voyage to the Americas. The Columbus depicted is a character drawn from Greek tragedy; his greatness ill-conceals the seeds of his own distruction. Columbus and his brother, Bartholemew, introduce what amounts to a New World Inquisition, burning natives at the stake to save their souls. Forester is likely accurate in his portrayal of the first encounters between natives and Europeans, and also in the contradictions between Christianity's peaceful intent and it's bloody practice. This book is not as good as The Gun, or The African Queen, but it's good enough to make you feel salt water seeping into your boots as you jump from the ship's launch to the beaches of the New World.