The Sky and the Forest [Hardcover]

C. S. Forester (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company (1947)
• ASIN: B001A6C9UW
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forester's single great work., October 16, 2003

By 

Jack Purcell (Placitas, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The sky and the forest (Hardcover)

I love C.S. Forester's writing. I've read the Hornblower series so many times I've worn out a set or two, loaning them to friends and acquaintances. But I don't pretend the Hornblower series is anything more than a fun, interesting journey through the life of an imaginary man.

The Sky and the Forest is another matter. Forester sets the novel deep in Africa at that crucial moment in history when the stone age metamorphosed overnight. This is no smileybook fantasy about the noble savage raped by intrusions of civilization. Forester's character is a human being living as humans lived in primitive environments and chronicals crucial, devastating events that change those lives when one culture succumbs to another. Forester might have chosen pre-Columbian America, pre-Coronadoan New Mexico, pre-Pizzaroan Peru, pre-Roman England or Gaul, or any of a thousand other places and times.

This is a timeless novel about the human condition and shared human flaws by an author capable of doing them justice. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly engrossing, August 16, 2008

By 

Zoe (Richmond. MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sky and the Forest (Hardcover)

If you are all ready a C.S Forester reader this will be a singular addition to your collection. It's the telling of an African king's life. His reign coincides with the gradual incursion of Europeans into the deep forest. The characters are portrayed with stunning and often brutal authenticity, free of judgement or sentiment. Forester presents an old and well-ordered society who for very practical reasons take part in cannibalism. Their complex relationships ring so true that you have no doubt these people existed in some incarnation at some time and some place.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, June 6, 2008

By 

Jan - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sky and the Forest (Hardcover)

This book is excellent. The author has a very smooth writting style that allows the reader to get lost in the book. It gives a very personal and thoughtful glance into the slave trade. I would highly recommend it.