Customer Reviews

The Real Hornblower: The Life and Times of Admiral Sir James Gordon, GCB

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This was a moderately interesting real-life account of a British sea captain contemporaneous with the Hornblower books. As such, it makes for an interesting comparison between fact and fiction, and, as the author says, sometimes the former is even more extraordinary than the latter.

The author doesn't fully prove his case that Hornblower was based on Gordon, though there are some striking parallels. The most notable one is that Gordon came up the Chesapeake as a commodore with a small fleet very similar to the one that Hornblower led into the Baltic. (What the author finds suspicious is that Forester wrote a naval history of this period that glosses over this incident, perhaps due to the similarities with Hornblower.) The author uses footnotes and an introduction to point out other points of commonality.

As I said, moderately interesting, particularly to a Hornblower reader, but not particularly a page-turner.

"The Real Hornblower" is a surprisingly in-depth book following and examining the life of Admiral Sir James Gordon. Perrett has obviously researched Gordon under a microscope, as there is very few sections of his life that are not covered. The book begins with a short examination of C. S. Forester, and his creation of Horatio Hornblower, and then delves into Gordon's life, through newpaper articals, personal letters, ship logs, and Gordon's own unpublished auto-biography. In addition to following Gordon, Perrett gives a very acurate historical account of the wars and politics (which revolve around the European and American naval fleets) during the time that Gordon was alive, make this an excellent naval history or reference book as well. For anyone who has read C. S. Forester's series on Horatio Hornblower, this book is an excellent supplement, allowing you to see a different side of 'Hornblower' in Admiral Sir James Gordon.