Home / Browse / Decorative Bindings / [The complete Hornblower:]

FORESTER, C. S.

[The complete Hornblower:]

The Happy Return (1937); A Ship of the Line (1938); Flying Colours (1938); The Commodore (1945); Lord Hornblower (1946); Mr Midshipman Hornblower (1950); Lieutenant Hornblower (1952); Hornblower and the Atropos (1953); Hornblower in the West Indies (1958); Hornblower and the Hotspur (1962).

Publisher: London, Michael Joseph, 1937–62

Stock code: 46610

Price: £10,000 Currency Conversion

All first editions, first impressions. Forester (real name Cecil Smith) was called to Hollywood to write a pirate film, working under Arthur Hornblower. However, before they had finished the script, another studio released Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn, and using the same historical incidents that they had counted on. Rather than seeking another position, hounded by the prospect of a paternity suit, Forester jumped aboard a cargo boat bound for home. Another passenger was the photographer Barbara Sutro. In the voyage, he took a one-day cruise around the Gulf of Fonseca in the ship's motor lifeboat, and by the end of the voyage he had a new novel worked out, The Happy Return, with its characters Hornblower, Bush, and Lady Barbara. Hornblower, with all his human indecisiveness and cross-grainedness, was Forester as he wished he had the courage to be, and Forester wrote about Hornblower again and again.

10 volumes, octavo. Finely bound by The Chelsea Bindery in dark blue morocco, titles and ship motifs to spines, raised bands, twin rule to turn-ins, burgundy endpapers, gilt edges. A fine set.

Don't understand our descriptions? Try reading our Glossary