Hornblower and the Crisis [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

C. S. Forester (Author), Christian Rodska (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2000

It is 1805, and Napoleon prepares to invade England. Asked by The Admiralty to risk a shameful death, Hornblower agrees to a dangerous mission: turning spy to light a powder trail to Trafalgar.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

When Forester died in 1966, he was working on his 11th Hornblower novel. Published posthumously, this unfinished story begins where Hornblower and the Hotspur ends. It is set on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar in which the British demolished the combined Spanish and French fleets in 1805. How that decisive battle came about is the subject of Crisis, in which Hornblower accepts a dangerous espionage mission that helps draw the French into battle. Although the manuscript ends before the character actually begins his mission, it provides some fine naval action. This book also contains two previously uncollected storiesAone set in the naval hero's midshipman days, the other in 1848, when Hornblower is admiral of the navy. It's an indispensable part of any Hornblower collection, and most listeners will find Christian Rodska's reading preferable to that of Books on Tape's Gary Martin.AR. Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

C. S. Forester was born in Cairo in 1899, where his father was stationed as a government official. He studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, and after leaving Guy's without a degree he turned to writing as a career. On the outbreak of war he entered the Ministry of Information and later he sailed with the Royal Navy to collect material for The Ship. He made a voyage to the Bering Sea to gather material for a similar book on the United States Navy, and it was during this trip that he was stricken with arteriosclerosis, a disease which left him crippled. However, he continued to write and in the Hornblower novels created the most renowned sailor in contemporary fiction. He died in 1966. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Chivers Audio Books; Unabridged edition (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0754004821
• ISBN-13: 978-0754004820
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,411,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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