Literary Picks "Captain Horatio Hornblower" by C.S. Forester

Author: Edward Pickering

In 1939 C. S. Forester published "Captain Horatio Hornblower," a naval story set during the Napoleonic wars. Its protagonist, Captain Hornblower, is loosely based on Horatio Nelson, the daring British Admiral who defeated Napoleon's fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1806. Horatio Nelson died that day, shot down by a French sharpshooter who spied the gleaming medals and brilliantly colored epaulettes on the admiral's uniform. Captain Hornblower, however, survives the exploits invented for him by Forester. In fact, Hornblower lives through 11 books in all.
The character of Horatio Hornblower is so memorable and the adventures he embarks on so full of excitement that only the severest critic could complain about the series. Forester, who wrote a number of Hollywood screenplays, writes action scenes brilliantly. His characterizations of Captain Hornblower, his fellow sailors, subordinates and foes are masterful. A tactical genius and revered leader, Hornblower exhibits, in private moments an all too human array of doubts, weaknesses, foibles and flaws. Hornblower is a truly heroic figure: readers, young and old, will follow him breathlessly as he criss-crosses the globe fighting the forces of Napoleon. Beneath his hero's panoply of past success exists a man in love with a woman not his wife, a man driven to succeed but afraid of failure, a man of good education - a man who hides his innate sensitivity and shyness beneath rigid discipline. "[Hornblower] had performed a most notable feat of navigation, of which anyone might be justifiably proud, in bringing the ship straight here after eleven weeks without sighting land. But he felt no elation about it. It was Hornblower's nature to find no pleasure in achieving things he could do; his ambition was always yearning after the impossible, to appear a strong and silent capable man, unmoved by emotion."
"Captain Horatio Hornblower" is actually an anthology containing three short novels: "Beat to Quarters," "Ship of the Line" and "Flying Colours." In "Beat to Quarters" Captain Hornblower sails HMS Lydia into the Pacific Ocean in order to incite a rebellion against the Spanish. In "Ship of the Line" Hornblower, now in command of HMS Sutherland, cruises the Mditerranean, battling both the French and an envious superior officer.
In "Flying Colours" which opens where the previous novel ends, Hornblower is a prisoner in France trying to escape.The Hornblower novels have enthralled generations of readers thirsting for adventure. Forester writes lucidly and accurately about ships and insightfully about human nature.