Fiction, Individual Wars, General & Miscellaneous European History, Genres & Literary Forms, French History, English Literature

The Hornblower companion

Name: The Hornblower companion
Author: C. S. Forester
ISBN: 9781557503473

by C. S. Forester

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Overview

This book is a beautifully illustrated companion to Hornblower's fictional career describing and illustrating all the main incidents in the ten novels. C S Forester's Hornblower novels have been avidly read for over two generations and are as popular today as when they were first published. They recount stirring adventures in the Royal Navy during the era of the Napoleonic wars and paint a vivid picture of the Senior Service at a time when it grew to dominate the world's oceans. C S Forester's companion to his hero's career describes all the incidents as they appeared in the ten novels, starting with Mr. Midshipman Hornblower and running through to Hornblower in the West Indies, and the chapters are all illustrated with beautifully drawn maps and charts. Some thirty of these, and over one hundred drawings and marginal decorations, bring to life both the events and characters that appear in the novels. In the second part of the book the author describes how the novels were written, what inspired the adventures and how they relate to the real world of the Royal Navy.

About the Author, C. S. Forester

C. S. Forester

One of the most popular adventure novelists ever, C.S. Forester delighted readers with his Horatio Hornblower series of nautical historical novels, which follow the career of a brave captain in the Napoleonic wars. Forester also created a great love story in The African Queen, the basis for the John Huston film of the same name.

Biography

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.

Author biography courtesy of Time Warner.