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Nelson: Love and Fame by Edgar Vincent — book cover

Nelson: Love and Fame

by Edgar Vincent
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Overview

Legendary for his exploits in war and love, Admiral Horatio Nelson comes into clear view in this captivating new biography.

“This is a wonderful book, the best modern biography of Britain’s greatest admiral.”—John Keegan, Daily Telegraph

“A great biography and a poignant love story.”—Benjamin Schwarz, Atlantic Monthly

“A masterly biography, cool and sharp in long shots, intimately persuasive in close focus, at all times difficult to put down and as timely as it is suggestive in its implications.”—Hilary Spurling, New York Times Book Review

“A splendid biography, not only because it is well written and well researched, but also because it neither seeks to demean the hero nor excuse the man. Heroism becomes the more remarkable when it is shown by people who in other ways are very like ourselves.”—L. G. Mitchell, Times Literary Supplement

“Vincent has written a masterful biography of a military man that examines the nuts and bolts of leadership in an entertaining and compelling way. . . . If you only read one biography of Nelson among the hundreds available, it should be this one.”—Paul Carbray, The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)

Synopsis

Legendary for his exploits in war and love, Admiral Horatio Nelson comes into clear view in this captivating new biography.

“This is a wonderful book, the best modern biography of Britain’s greatest admiral.”—John Keegan, Daily Telegraph

“A great biography and a poignant love story.”—Benjamin Schwarz, Atlantic Monthly

“A masterly biography, cool and sharp in long shots, intimately persuasive in close focus, at all times difficult to put down and as timely as it is suggestive in its implications.”—Hilary Spurling, New York Times Book Review

“A splendid biography, not only because it is well written and well researched, but also because it neither seeks to demean the hero nor excuse the man. Heroism becomes the more remarkable when it is shown by people who in other ways are very like ourselves.”—L. G. Mitchell, Times Literary Supplement

“Vincent has written a masterful biography of a military man that examines the nuts and bolts of leadership in an entertaining and compelling way. . . . If you only read one biography of Nelson among the hundreds available, it should be this one.”—Paul Carbray, The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)

The New York Times

This is a remarkable book on all fronts, technical, historical and psychological. Its structural core is the interweaving of Nelson's professional achievement -- ''which could accurately be described as a miracle of management'' -- with a disturbed and tumultuous secret inner life. The hero who in battle radiated calm and reassurance paid for it in periods of inactivity or suspense with panic attacks, sleeplessness, fever and night sweats. The loss of his right arm made him feel useless, and blindness in one eye threatened the sight of the other. The feelings he poured out alone in his cabin, in a steady stream of letters to friends and mentors, reveal a side of Nelson that remained, in spite of legendary success and superstar status, touchy, boastful and insecure. — Hillary Spurling

About the Author, Edgar Vincent

Since his retirement as a senior manager from ICI, Edgar Vincent has been researching and writing about Horatio Nelson.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

“Easily the best biography of Nelson I’ve ever read, a superb, fully rigged 74-gun ship of a book.”—Andrew Roberts

“Nelson: Love and Fame has the potential to prove a great success, to be very popular indeed, and to establish itself as the fullest and best life of Nelson for a generation.”—Rory Muir, author of Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon

The New York Times

This is a remarkable book on all fronts, technical, historical and psychological. Its structural core is the interweaving of Nelson's professional achievement -- ''which could accurately be described as a miracle of management'' -- with a disturbed and tumultuous secret inner life. The hero who in battle radiated calm and reassurance paid for it in periods of inactivity or suspense with panic attacks, sleeplessness, fever and night sweats. The loss of his right arm made him feel useless, and blindness in one eye threatened the sight of the other. The feelings he poured out alone in his cabin, in a steady stream of letters to friends and mentors, reveal a side of Nelson that remained, in spite of legendary success and superstar status, touchy, boastful and insecure. — Hillary Spurling

Publishers Weekly

The approaching bicentennial of the Battle of Trafalgar has inspired a number of books on the Royal Navy and its great admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805). Retired business executive Vincent follows a long and successful tradition of British writers who are neither academicians nor professionals with this comprehensive biography. Making extensive use of archival and published sources, Vincent provides a perceptive, empathetic analysis of a man who throughout his life focused talent and energy on the pursuit of ambition and self-presentation. Vincent's Nelson did not just seek love and fame; he equated them. At the age of 18 he consciously decided to be a hero, and his strong point remained self-confidence. Nelson increasingly identified his personal interests with the public welfare. He was prone to histrionics and inordinately fond of the first person singular. Yet at the same time he incorporated, to a degree unusual for military officers at any period, the virtues of communication, negotiation and collaboration. Vincent makes the telling point that, far from being the rule-breaking innovator of many accounts, Nelson was an organization man and a skilled player of navy politics, able to mobilize support for even his high-risk operations. He cultivated a charismatic personality to win the hearts and minds of his fellow officers, eventually succeeding in welding a group of standoffish, individualistic captains into a "band of brothers." Initially unsuccessful with women, Nelson was fortunate in his eventual relationship with Emma Hamilton. Far from being the embarrassing encumbrance of some saltier biographies, she emerges here as meeting Nelson's need for unconditional acceptance in a way that freed his formidable powers to concentrate fully on the professional achievements that earned him immortality-ironically, at the expense of his loved ones' welfare and well-being. Vincent's Nelson, for good and ill, would have made the same choice consciously, without hesitation. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Vincent (retired senior manager from ICI) first became interested in Nelson during his own service in the British Royal Navy some 40 years ago. Unlike Terry Coleman's 2002 The Nelson Touch: The Life and Legend of Horatio Nelson, which sought to separate the man from the legend, Vincent attempts "a realistic, balanced and interwoven account of the whole of Nelson's emotional and professional experience." With 34 pages of notes and five pages of primary and secondary sources, 76 illustrations-60 in color-and 12 maps and battle diagrams, his biography is a well-written and excellently researched addition to the number of recent Nelson evaluations that will surely increase as the bicentennial of his death at Trafalgar nears in 2005. In the process of allowing Nelson "to describe his feelings as far as possible," Vincent concludes that he has ended up with neither an icon nor the Nelson he began with. Instead, the most telling summation of Vincent's analysis of Nelson's charismatic personality is his judgment of Nelson's death scene behavior: "In it there is something for all of us....His instinct for keeping control of the stories told about him was uncannily present." Recommended for all libraries with large history collections. [For more on Nelson, see Tom Pocock's The Terror Before Trafalgar, reviewed on p. 135.-Ed.]-Robert C. Jones, Warrensburg, MO Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Book Details

Published
August 1, 2004
Publisher
Yale University Press
Pages
688
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780300102604

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