Nelson: The New Letters [Hardcover]

Colin White (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2005

Nelson - The New Letters, edited by Colin White, presents around 500 of the most important letters uncovered during the course of the epic Nelson Letters Project, a five year search of archives throughout the world. Dating from 1777 and including the earliest extant Nelson letter, this collection shows us both Nelson the officer and Nelson the private man, and, uniquely among the plethora of new Nelson books, it records his life and exploits in his own words. Written in Nelson's free-flowing and conversational style, these letters introduce a very real and human figure bringing us much closer to an otherwise distant historical hero. Colin White's accompanying annotations and essays place Nelson's life and letters in full context. So alongside letters to the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV),Prime Minister Addington, and dignitaries like the King and Queen of Naples, covering treaty negotiations, battle orders and campaign plans, we can also read warm missives to family and friends, informal notes and instructions to colleagues and subordinates and some eloquently passionate letters to Emma Hamilton. Other highlights include Nelson's account of the Battle of Copenhagen; detailed orders for the Trafalgar and Nile campaigns; notes of his careful diplomatic negotiations; his network of personal contacts; and his concern with his public image.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Colin White...successfully reminds us why the memory of Nelson and his achievements has endured. THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKSIn Nelson - The New Letters Colin White has brought to life a treasure-trove of 1,200 letters, creating a virtual Nelson autobiography. SEAFARER, the Journal of the Marine SocietyStriking....revealing....gives a sharp insight....(the) letters give a distinct sense of how Nelson was able to inspire so high a degree of loyalty and devotion.....this is a work very much for scholars. MARINER'S MIRRORIn Trafalgar's bicentennial year, there have been several Nelson biographies, but no book about this authentic English hero could surpass the fascination of Nelson's own words...faithfully edited by one of our pre-eminent naval scholars, this compulsive volume paints a picture of the man in all his astonishing complexity. OBSERVER (Robert McCrum) They are coruscatingly vivid letters, alive with bright expressiveness. (...) On important matters, he writes with gripping verve; the letters giving accounts of engagements, especially those to the Duke of Clarence, are extraordinarily exciting. (...) This is an important addition which the general reader shouldn't overlook. SPECTATORAdds a new dimension. (...) This is the closest we will ever get to reading Horatio Nelson's autobiography. EASTERN DAILY PRESSThere is much fresh evidence here to illustrate Nelson's virtuosity as a leader. INDEPENDENT Impressively wide-ranging.... A Nelson fan's delight and a welcome addition. DAILY EXPRESS In so far as Admiral Nelson has a representative on earth it is Colin White. (...) SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (An) important addition to the printed Nelson sources (by) perhaps the best-known "Nelsonian" of our day. TLS Standing far above the bicentenary fanfare...White has significantly added to our understanding of Nelson's tempestuous personality. MAIL ON SUNDAY Nelson's character and conduct, his tactical ideas and strategic insight emerge from his correspondence, in essence in the form of autobiography.....White has served his subject well. COUNTRY LIFEBy any standards, Nelson The New Letters is a distinguished scholarly achievement....Colin (White) has done real service, including printing riches which are still not in the public domain...(he) is a judicious and widely-read editor and he presents his chosen letters with explanation and caution. THE TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE

About the Author

COLIN WHITE is Deputy Director of the Royal Naval Museum and currently serving at the National Maritime Museum as Director, Trafalgar 200. He is also the author of The Nelson Encyclopaedia, The Nelson Companion, and 1797: Nelson's Year of Destiny.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Boydell Press (May 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843831309
• ISBN-13: 978-1843831303
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,703,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This very decent book doesn't enrich our knowledge greatly, May 13, 2005

By 

Mrs Gillian M. Lloyd (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nelson: The New Letters (Hardcover)

I buy all books on Horatio Lord Nelson, and especially enjoy those based on, or containing, Nelson's own letters and other documents. I was thus excited to learn that Colin White, our greatest living Nelson authority, had compiled a new book of unpublished Nelson sources. Yet, without wishing to diminish Mr White's fantastic effort in finding and compiling these letters, they don't change our interpretation of many (or perhaps any) of the key events in Nelson's life. They do SUPPORT the correctness, however, of analyses advanced in many recent books, including Joel Hayward's, Brian Lavery's, John Sugden's and, naturally, Mr White's own beautiful books. This volume is a fine looking book too, with an attractive cover and excellent plates. I hope readers won't think me unkind for not recommending five stars, which I usually give to Mr White's books. But four stars still indicates that this is a very worthy book.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Letters, July 9, 2005

By 

David Stapleton (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nelson: The New Letters (Hardcover)

Let me start by laying out what this book is: it is a printing of a sizable fraction of 1,300 newly discovered pieces of correspondence from Horatio Nelson and reprinting of a few pieces that had previously been published in highly edited fashion, organized partially by timeframe and partially by topic. The letters are printed in fairly original form (although in type rather than script) with minimal modification to enhance the readability without changing the sense of the content.

I normally do not find tomes of letters and memos to be of great interest in themselves, nor am I a Nelson scholar who will devour everything and anything on the subject. As such, I found the book fairly dry reading. However, Colin White has done a great service by printing this correspondence to help make the material more readily available for historical research, as well as providing a reasonable categorization of the pieces. He also provides a nice bit of commentary to introduce each topic, helping the reader with some context with which to view the letters. It would appear that these letters do shed some new light on lesser known areas of the life of Nelson, but I would not look for any earth shattering revelations. There are a couple of nice appendices including a nice timeline and the ships he commanded.

For those more interested in a biography of Nelson, I would suggest For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War by Joel Hayward.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The single most significant advance of our appreciation of Nelson for many years", August 18, 2005

By 

Peter Hudson "Peter" (Chatham, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nelson: The New Letters (Hardcover)

That phrase from The Naval Review says it all - this is a wonderful book, with new insights on almost every page. It really is remarkable that so much material has remained unpublished until Colin White dug it out and the story of how this treasure trove of new material was unearthed by patient, meticulous scholarship is almost as fascinating as the new letters themselves. Nelson emerges from this new material in a more rounded, and much more fascinating guise - so much of the new stuff is from private letters and, in them, he reveals much more of himself than in the more formal, official dispatches and letters on which all previous biographers have had to rely. The book also examines areas that all the previous biographies have missed, or touched on only briefly - for example, Nelson's remarkable Intelligence network in the Mediterranean in 1803/5. Above all, as most of the professional reviews have highlighted, this book demonstrates what a wonderful writer Nelson was. Colin White's short but finely crafted commentaries that introduce each section, help us to understand the ways in which the new material challenges (or supports) the traditional narrative. All future biographies will draw extensively on this book. What a superb tribute to Nelson in this his bicentenary year!