Biography, C. S. Forester

Forester was born in Cairo. He married Kathleen Belcher in 1926, had two sons, and divorced in 1945.

During World War II, Forester moved to the United States where he wrote propaganda to encourage the country to join the Allies. He eventually settled in Berkeley, California. In 1947, he secretly married a woman named Dorothy Foster.

The popularity of the Hornblower series has continued to grow over time, built around a central character that was heroic but not too heroic. Both Hornblower and Aubrey are based in part on the historical Admiral Lord Dundonald of Great Britain (known as Lord Cochrane).

Forester wrote many other novels as well, among them The African Queen (1935) and The General (1936); and seafaring stories that did not involve Hornblower, such as Brown on Resolution (1929), The Ship (1943) and Hunting the Bismarck (1959). These too are excelent books.

Several of his works were filmed, most notably the 1951 film The African Queen directed by John Huston. Forester is also credited as story writer for several movies not based on his published fiction, including Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942).

His non-fiction seafaring works include The Age of Fighting Sail (1956), an unusually candid account of the Sea battles between Great Britain and the United States in the War of 1812.

In addition to his novels of seafaring life, Forester also published two crime novels, Payment Deferred (1926), and Plain Murder (1930), and two children's books.

Hornblower and the Hotspur, by C. S. Forester

This is the third Hornblower book chronologically speaking, but one of the last books written. The action in the book takes place in 1803.

After an unhappy Hornblower and the Hotspur, by C. S. Forester spell ashore on half-pay, Hornblower marries the daughter of his landlady, and then goes back to sea again. He is promoted to Commander and given command of the Hotspur, a small sloop of war that is assigned to do blockade duty with the Channel Fleet in the icy north Atlantic. His first mission is to take her in close to Brest and observe the French preparations for war and then report back to Admiral Cornwallis.

Hornblower soon gets himself engaged in battles on sea and shore. Hornblower and the Hotspur have sea chases, broadsides, furious storms and night actions. H. H. turns out be a good commander, and his is service is always excellent. Even against ships with more firepower than his own; he and his ship do very well. However, Hornblower is privately self-deprecating and convinced of his own cowardice, and his self-confidence often wavers even though he never shows this.

One of the missions he carries out, based on his own idea, is a very daring attack on a semaphore station. Yet, even though he succeeds, he does not earn any prize money. Seeing this, Cornwallis is kind enough to send the young Commander on a mission that is certain to provide him with a huge sum in prize money: Together with a group of frigates, Hornblower and the Hotspur are ordered to seize a Spanish fleet of treasure ship returning from South America with bullion and money!

C. S. Forester again tells a marvelous tale. Captain Hornblower and First Lieutenant Bush are now fully developed characters. Their association finds shape in this novel. Also, Hornblower is starting to gain a reputation as a very competent officer. Hornblower and the Hotspur is one of the best Hornblower novels. It is also a key to the series in many ways. It is a book you cannot afford to miss if you like naval fiction and read the Hornblower saga. It is very entertaining and exciting, with lots of action.

Links to C. S. Forester's books at amazon US, amazon UK, amazon CAN, and at Bokkilden and Haugenbok.

Hornblower and the Atropos, by C.S. Forester

This is the fourth of the Hornblower books in terms of internal chronology, and it is now 1806. Hornblower has had a short leave ashore and hurries back to London Hornblower and the Atropos, by C. S. Forester with his wife to take up his new command – the HMS Atropos, a 22-gun sloop.

His first mission is a somewhat curious one – he is in charge of some of the funeral arrangements for Lord Nelson who died in the Battle of Trafalgar. His job is to co-ordinate the many ceremonial barges down the Thames. He takes the task very seriously, and pours his considerable energy into it, but even so narrowly averts trouble as the barge with Nelson's coffin springs a leak and is close to sinking.

Next, he is ordered to set sail for the Mediterranean in the Atropos and saddled with a very problematic new midshipman - a deposed prince from a German principality taken by Napoleon. In Gibraltar he picks up a diving master and his divers, and then he sets off to Turkey to recover a sunken treasure consisting of British pay money that were sunk to avoid capture.

The treasure is hard to get at, and only Ceylonese pearl divers are able to manage to dive at the required depts. The challenge is also to get the money up and out without the Turks finding out about it and without causing a diplomatic incident. As the treasure is located close to the coast of Turkey and near a Turkish fort, this turns out to be a complicated task. Hornblower manages to get the money, or at least most of it, up. But with a Turkish frigate nearby that is capable of outgunning his ship – will he be able to get the money out of Turkish waters and back to his own?

Hornblower and the Atropos is an ok read, but not among the best books in the series. It is amusing and entertaining, but also sometimes a little annoying – I simply did not like the first 50 pages or so. It also has less naval action in it than most of the books in the series. If you want to read to whole series, you will want to read it. Otherwise this is not the best book to start reading if you are new to the Hornblower saga.

See also our reviews of the best Hornblower movies!


Beat to Quarters, by C. S. Forester

This was the first book C. S. Forester wrote about Horatio Hornblower. However, in terms of the internal chronology of the series, it is the fifth. In England itsBeat to Quarters, by C. S. Forester title was The Happy Return.

In Beat to Quarters (the US title) we find Hornblower, having been promoted to Captain, on a secret mission to the Pacific with his ship HMS Lydia, a 36 gun frigate, to support a rebel against the Spanish Empire in Central America and damage the Spanish naval presence there, the Natividad. The Natividad is a 50 gun Spanish ship of the line, thus a tall order for Hornblower to handle. Yet his order is “to take, sink, burn or destroy” Natividad.

Hornblower soon finds that the Spanish noble is a little bit different from what he had expected, and that perhaps all is not exactly as supposed. The Spanish noble calls himself El Supremo, views himself as more or less divine, and tolerates nothing but absolute obedience. However, Hornblower has little choice in the matter. His orders are clear. So he joins forces with the madman.

Then he sets out the capture the powerful Spanish frigate Natividad, which is the key to Spanish naval control of the American Pacific coast. And, indeed, as it turns out he has to fight not only one, but two fights with the Spaniard. And both are spectacular fights, well worthy of Horatio Hornblower. The first is a clever night action. The second is a battle at sea with the two ships battling it out side by side with gunsmoke and roaring guns in a fight to death.

And when Hornblower returns to England, he carries with him a passenger he had to pick up in Panama, Lady Barbara Wellesley. She turns out to be a wonderful lady and, as well, an excellent whist player. So now the newly married Hornblower gets engaged in another type of battle altogether.

Beat to Quarters is a spectacular, very entertaining book. It is easy, when reading Beat to Quarters, to understand why the Hornblower saga so quickly acquired such a large following.

Links to C. S. Forester's books at amazon US, amazon UK, amazon CAN, and at Bokkilden and Haugenbok.

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