
May, 1810 - and thirty-nine-year-old Captain Horatio Hornblower has been handed his first ship of the line . . .
Though the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland is 'the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy' and a crew shortage means he must recruit two hundred and fifty landlubbers, Hornblower knows that by the time Sutherland and her squadron reach the blockaded Catalonian coast every seaman will do his duty. But with daring raids against the French army and navy to be made, it will take all Hornblower's seamanship - and stewardship - to steer a steady course to victory and home . . .
This is the sixth of eleven books chronicling the adventures of C. S. Forester's inimitable nautical hero, Horatio Hornblower.
Cecil Scott Forester, an Englishman, was born in Cairo in 1899, the son of a British army officer. He was educated in London, and for a time he studied medicine. After a World War I stint in the infantry, however, he decided to be a poet. This was a shortlived pursuit and he soon turned to biography and fiction. He then wrote many best-selling novels—African Queen and The General among them—before he wrote the first of his Hornblower stories in 1937. That first book was Beat to Quarters, chronologically the fifth volume in tracing the career of Hornblower. In 1940 Forester moved to Berkeley, California, where he lived for many years between his World War II and postwar travels. In April of 1966, while writing Hornblower and the Crisis, C. S. Forester died. Today, the popularity of his writing still continues to grow, and the names of both Forester and Hornblower have become synonymous with the greatest names in naval literature.

May, 1810 - and thirty-nine-year-old Captain Horatio Hornblower has been handed his first ship of the line . . .
Though the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland is 'the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy' and a crew shortage means he must recruit two hundred and fifty landlubbers, Hornblower knows that by the time Sutherland and her squadron reach the blockaded Catalonian coast every seaman will do his duty. But with daring raids against the French army and navy to be made, it will take all Hornblower's seamanship - and stewardship - to steer a steady course to victory and home . . .
This is the sixth of eleven books chronicling the adventures of C. S. Forester's inimitable nautical hero, Horatio Hornblower.
Cecil Scott Forester, an Englishman, was born in Cairo in 1899, the son of a British army officer. He was educated in London, and for a time he studied medicine. After a World War I stint in the infantry, however, he decided to be a poet. This was a shortlived pursuit and he soon turned to biography and fiction. He then wrote many best-selling novels—African Queen and The General among them—before he wrote the first of his Hornblower stories in 1937. That first book was Beat to Quarters, chronologically the fifth volume in tracing the career of Hornblower. In 1940 Forester moved to Berkeley, California, where he lived for many years between his World War II and postwar travels. In April of 1966, while writing Hornblower and the Crisis, C. S. Forester died. Today, the popularity of his writing still continues to grow, and the names of both Forester and Hornblower have become synonymous with the greatest names in naval literature.