Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies (1958)

This is the best of the books on Hornblower that I have read so far. This book is really a series of about 5 short stories which are bound together as part of his experience as Admiral in the West Indies. I especially liked the capture of the slave ship, being captured by pirates and the last one on his way home with Lady Barbara when they encounter a hurricane. You really feel you understand the man and his motives...his relationships with his fellow sailors is amazing in the distant but obvious affection by his men with the resolve to do their best under his command.

I have read three novels about Hornblower now...all of them in the latter part of his career....I am looking for the first novel now and will read them in order. It is nice to find a relaxing, exciting, knowledgeable read ( )

Hornblower as an older man commanding a peacetime squadron in the West Indies. The most excitng part is his capture by pirates. ( )

Although I’ve had this book on my shelves long enough to be able to forget how I came to own it, I didn’t read until this week when a colleague told me Forester’s Hornblower was someone with self-doubts, something which made me think this sort of nautical adventure story might be more interesting with such a character – and I think that Hornblower’s personality is the main aspect of the book to hold my attention.

While the five chapters are really five separate longish short stories, they are connected enough by location to form a loose whole. It’s also interesting reading a novel set in the 1800s written by someone over half a century ago – i.e. a 1950’s account of a situation a century earlier. I didn’t feel any concession to ’50s’ inclinations in ‘The Star of the South’ with Forester ending the story with the capture of The Estrella with no mention of the unfortunate slaves whose only value to the British seemed to be how much per head they’d get for freeing them but in the final story Barbara’s freeing of Hudnutt seemed a softening of the harshness of the times.

Still, I thought Forester described the hurricane powerfully and although the nautical detail went over my head quite a bit in the stories, the clarity of the prose and the way Forester kept his stories moving ahead as you need in this genre made them weather the time gap reasonably well. ( )

I was sad to be at the end of the Hornblower series. This is C. S. Forester's eleventh and final Hornblower novel. It is made up of five mostly unrelated shorter stories. In the story, Lord Hornblower gets posted as Admiral and commander-in-chief of all British ships in the West Indies. Pirates and slave traders make up his main adversaries. I wished the stories would have had more depth, but when you have read the other Hornblower books, like me, you want to read this one, even though it doesn't have much of any character development. ( )

A brief review of this, the next-to-last book in the eleven book series on the career of Horatio Hornblower in the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars must suffice as a review of the entire series. Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid the series and the talent of C.S. Forester is the fact that I have read the entire series at least three times. That is tribute to Forester's ability to create memorable characters such as Hornblower and place them realistically in their historical setting. As a chronicle of the British Navy at the height of its power and expanse around the globe, it has no equal in fiction, even though there are a number of like structured naval series that have attempted to follow in Forester's footsteps. And for realistic and understandable naval battle scenes, there is no better reading. Each volume is well-written, well-paced and replete with adventure. I have introduced the series to my children because it is so attractive and well done, and now find them fans of Hornblower as well. ( )