Lord Nelson [Paperback]

C. S. Forester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1929

The celebrated author of the Hornblower series presents the biography of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, the victor of the naval battle of Trafalgar.

Product Details

• Paperback: 380 pages
• Publisher: Simon Publications (December 1, 1929)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931541698
• ISBN-13: 978-1931541695
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,251,632 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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nelson bio an insight into Forester's Hornblower, March 3, 2006

By 

Nicholas Dujmovic (Vienna, Virginia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lord Nelson (Paperback)

CS Forester's biography of Nelson was originally published in 1929, the same year he published two other books (his very good novel 'Brown on Resolution' and his so-so travelogue on the Loire, 'The Voyage of the Annie Marble.') So it's not surprising that this seems a slapdash affair. Though readable enough, Forester's histories and biographies are never quite strong, and all lack scholarly rigor. For this, he relied solely on Nelson's letters and general secondary sources. It also ends quite abruptly, with Nelson's death at Trafalgar--no conclusion, no retrospective, no summing up. He's shot, he falls, he dies.

However, the reader or Forester scholar looking into his famous fictional creation, Horatio Hornblower, will find much of great interest in this work, which predates the first of the HH novels by seven years. From the first name to the tendency toward sea sickness, there's much to see of the imagined naval hero in the real one.

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Material to Slowly Peruse for Fans of Forester or the Napoleonic Era, March 5, 2010

By 

Eric Snyder (Venice, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lord Nelson (Paperback)

CS Forester's biography of Nelson has some flaws but, overall, is both entertaining and revealing reading for those interested in the period and the personality.

Chief among what might be called its flaws are the demands placed on the reader's attention. It is not written in an overly simple style, in other words--there are some long sentences and formal phrasing, etc. These are probably a result of the author's enthusiasm for his material and writing in general, though. Still, all is clear if, ocassionally, an extra moment is taken to digest what is written.

A second flaw are the sometimes suspect conclusions the author makes. In the author's opinion, people are often clueless about things you would not expect them to be clueless about. Enemies of England also, according to the author, spend more time cowering and as incompetents than you might realistically expect. These biases seem to be the result of a desire to prevent Nelson and the English Navy from having to share the spotlight with other characters or traditions. Little needs to be said about them if they are so quickly, erroneously and superficially understood, in other words.

With all that said, the author's biases are clear enough to be easily dispensed with by readers with minimal maturity. Such readers can go on to appreciate the mastery the author displays in combining knowledge of politics, military history and psychological insight. All of these are interwoven in an entertaining, compelling way as you might expect from the creator of Hornblower.

To sum up, if you want a book to slowly read out of interest in Forester or British naval history or, even, Nelson, this is a good one. You can share in the writer's zest for his material, certainly. If you don't already have an interest, though, this book is probably too much effort. Published in 1929 about a life lived over a hundred years before, the subject matter of the book can seem too distant, even irrelevant, which is not helped by its somewhat formal style.