Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films and radio and television programmes, and C. Northcote Parkinson elaborated a "biography" of him, The True Story of Horatio Hornblower.
Forester's series about Hornblower tales began with the novel The Happy Return (US title: Beat to Quarters), published in 1937. Herein, Hornblower is a captain on a secret mission to Central America in 1808. Later stories fill out his career, starting with his unpromising beginning as a seasick midshipman. As the Napoleonic Wars progress, he steadily gains promotion as a result of his skill and daring, despite his initial poverty and lack of influential friends. After surviving many adventures in a wide variety of locales, he rises to become admiral of the fleet.
Inspirations Forester's original inspiration was an old copy of the Naval Chronicle that described the effective dates of the Treaty of Ghent. Two countries could be at war in one part of the world after a peace was obtained months before in another part because of the time required to communicate around the world. The burdens that this placed on captains far from home led Forester to invent a character struggling with the stresses of a "man alone".
Many parallels exist between Hornblower and real naval officers of the period, notably Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, Sir George Cockburn, Lord Cochrane, Sir Edward Pellew, Jeremiah Coghlan, Sir James Gordon, and Sir William Hoste. The actions of the Royal Navy at the time, documented in official reports and in the Naval Chronicle, provided much of the material for Hornblower's fictional adventures.
The name "Horatio" was inspired by the character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet and chosen also because of its association with contemporary figures such as Nelson. The surname "Hornblower" comes from Arthur Hornblow, a Hollywood producer who was a colleague and friend of Forester's.
Frederick Marryat has been identified as "the father of the seafaring adventure novel from which all others followed, from C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower to Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin". Hornblower and the eponymous protagonist of Marryat's novel Peter Simple both start their careers rather unpromisingly and without influential friends, but advance through hard work, honesty, and bravery. Both fight duels before their careers have properly started and both are taken prisoner early in their careers.
Characteristics
Hornblower is courageous and intelligent, and a skilled seaman, but he is burdened by intense reserve, introspection, and self-doubt, and is described as "unhappy and lonely". Despite numerous personal feats of extraordinary skill and cunning, he belittles his own achievements by numerous rationalisations, remembering only his fears. He consistently ignores or is unaware of the admiration in which he is held by his fellow sailors. He regards himself as cowardly, dishonest, and at times, disloyal, never crediting his ability to persevere, think rapidly, organise, or cut to the heart of a matter. His sense of duty, his hard work, and his drive to succeed make these imagined negative characteristics undetectable by everyone but him. He frets obsessively over petty failures that reinforce his poor self-image. His introverted nature and incredibly high standards isolate him from the people around him, including his closest friend, William Bush, with whom he is frequently foul-tempered. He is guarded with almost everyone, unless the matter is the business of discharging his duty as a king's officer, when he is clear and decisive.
Hornblower possesses a highly developed sense of duty, refusing to put personal benefit in the way of the best interests of his service and his country. This is frequently misinterpreted by those around him as either modesty or false humility, though he often fails to recognise that the possibility of personal benefit existed until it is pointed out to him in retrospect. On occasion, however, he is able to set his duty aside, usually in order to show loyalty to someone he respects. For example, in Hornblower and the Hotspur, he contrives an escape for his personal steward who would otherwise have been hanged for striking a superior officer. Hornblower is philosophically opposed to flogging and capital punishment, and is pained when circumstances or the Articles of War force him to impose such sentences.
He suffers from seasickness at the start of each of his voyages. As a midshipman, he becomes seasick at the sheltered roadstead of Spithead. He is tone-deaf and finds music an incomprehensible irritant; in a scene in Hornblower and the Hotspur, he is unable to recognise the British national anthem.
A voracious reader, he can provide discourse on both contemporary and classical literature. His skill at mathematics makes him both an adept navigator and a talented whist player. He uses his ability at whist to supplement his income during a poverty-stricken period of inactivity. Due to time spent as a prisoner of war early in his career, he is fluent in both French and Spanish, which frequently proves useful in when fighting ships of those nationalities.
Analysis and reception With Hornblower, C. S. Forester is credited with inventing the naval historical novel. Stephanie Jones called Hornblower "the most renowned sailor in contemporary fiction".
Igor Webb noted that Forester intended for the books to be read by adults, but they have become popular among adolescents as well.
Forester wrote the Hornblower series to avoid entanglements with real-world history. Hornblower is always off on another mission when a great naval victory occurs during the Napoleonic Wars. Similarly during the War of 1812 he was never in a battle with Americans.
Fictional biography
Youth Hornblower is born in Kent, the son of a physician. He has no inherited wealth or influential connections who can advance his career. In The Happy Return, the first novel published, Hornblower's age is given as 37 in July 1808, implying a birth year of 1770 or 1771. However, when Forester decided to write about Hornblower's early career in the sixth novel Mr Midshipman Hornblower, he made his hero about five years younger, giving his birth date as 4 July 1776, the date of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence. This adjustment allows Hornblower to begin his career in wartime.C. Northcote Parkinson in The True Story of Horatio Hornblower gives slight scholarly corrections to various aspects of Hornblower's life as narrated by his creator. For example, Parkinson states that his father was an apothecary rather than a physician. He is given a classical education, and by the time he joins the Royal Navy, at the age of 17, he is well versed in Greek and Latin. He is tutored in French by a penniless French émigré and has an aptitude for mathematics, which serves him well as a navigator.
Early career Hornblower's early exploits are many and varied. He joins the Royal Navy as a midshipman, where he is bullied and tries to resolve the matter by forcing a duel with his tormentor. He is then transferred to under Edward Pellew and distinguishes himself. He fends off fire ships, which interrupt his (failed) first examination for promotion to lieutenant. He is given command of the sloop Le Rêve while still only an acting lieutenant; the vessel blunders into a Spanish fleet in the fog, resulting in Hornblower's capture and imprisonment in Ferrol. During his captivity, he acquires a fluent knowledge of both Galician and Spanish, and is finally confirmed as a commissioned lieutenant. He leads a daring rescue of Spanish crewmen from a shipwreck during a storm, which leads to his being picked up by a British warship patrolling offshore; since he had given his Spanish captors his parole that he would not escape, though, he insists upon being returned to captivity. The Spanish release him for his bravery.
As a junior lieutenant, he serves in HMS Renown under Captain Sawyer, whose bouts of paranoia on a mission to the Caribbean strain discipline to breaking point. On this voyage, he begins his long friendship with William Bush, at the time his senior in rank. Due to his exploits, Hornblower is made commander, but his promotion is not confirmed when he returns to England following the Peace of Amiens. This causes him great financial distress; he has to repay the difference between a commander's pay and a lieutenant's from his meagre half-pay. He uses his skill at whist to supplement his income, playing for money with admirals and other distinguished men in an officers' club.
HMS Hotspur In 1803, renewed hostilities against France seem imminent, and Hornblower is confirmed in the rank of commander, and appointed captain of the sloop-of-war . Before sailing, he marries Maria, the daughter of his landlady, despite his doubts about the match. Maria dotes upon the irritable Hornblower in ways that he finds vexing; she annoys him with both her ignorance and hero-worship of him. However, he warms to her over the course of several books and becomes a good (though not perfect) husband to her and father to their two children, Horatio and Maria.
After gruelling service during the blockade of Brest aboard Hotspur, he is promised a promotion to Post-captain by Commander-in-Chief William Cornwallis and is recalled to England. He meets the Secretary of the Admiralty and the rank is conferred when Hornblower agrees to take part in a dangerous mission he himself has suggested—delivering forged letters to Admiral Villeneuve that lead the French fleet to sortie, leading to the British victory at Trafalgar.
HMS Atropos Following this exploit, Hornblower is given command of the sixth-rate ship HMS Atropos. His first task is to organise Nelson's funeral procession along the River Thames and he has to deal with the near-sinking of the barge conveying the hero's coffin.
Atropos is ordered to join the British Mediterranean fleet. Hornblower is sent on a secret mission to recover gold and silver from a sunken British transport on the bottom of Marmorice Bay within the Ottoman Empire with the aid of pearl divers from Ceylon. The operation is successful, though Hornblower has a narrow escape from a Turkish warship intent on capturing the gold.
After unloading the treasure at Gibraltar, Atropos and another British warship capture a large Spanish frigate after a desperate battle. In the friendly port of Palermo, Hornblower oversees the repairs of the battle damage, but just as this work is finished, the ship is given to the King of the Two Sicilies to keep him as an ally. Returning to England, Hornblower finds his two young children dying of smallpox.
HMS Lydia Later in the timeline, but written of in the first novel in order of publication, he makes a long, difficult voyage in command of the frigate HMS Lydia round the Horn to the Pacific, where his mission is to support a megalomaniac, El Supremo, in his rebellion against the Spanish. He captures Natividad, a much more powerful Spanish ship, but reluctantly has to cede it to El Supremo to placate him. When he finds that the Spanish have switched sides in the interim, he is forced to find and sink the ship he had captured—adding injury to insult, as he had given up the prize money to maintain the uneasy alliance with the madman.