horatio hornblower

[mbjmiller@ms]

was horatio hornblower a real person?

[Clanad]

Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Hornblower of Smallbridge (1776-1857) did not exist.

C. S. Forester was inspired by his reading of the Naval Chronicle, the Royal Navy's �house magazine� of the early 19th century, to create the character of Horatio Hornblower as the fictional hero of his series of naval historical novels.

Hornblower's adventures are based on the actual reports and Gazette Letters of a large number of naval officers, among them Sir George ********, Lord Cochrane, Sir James Gordon, Sir William Hoste and many, many others. Forester had no real need to invent any of Hornblower's exploits, rather he had to tone down the achievements of the Royal Navy of the time: ******** sacked Washington and burned the White House in the �War of 1812', and Cochrane's career included the defence of a castle in Spain and leading a fireship attack on the French Fleet.

C. S. Forester partially explained the process of Hornblower's creation in his book, The Hornblower Companion (London: Michael Joseph, 1964, recently republished by Chatham Press). He almost singlehandedly invented the naval historical novel, now the field of writers such as Patrick O'Brian, Dudley Pope and Alexander Kent.

(Source: UK National Maritime Museum)

[Romeo]

No. He is a ficticious character, a creation of novelist CS Forester (1899 - 1966).

[Xollob]

If anybody's curious: in Clanad's post, the Asterisk Monster ate Sir George C0ckburn.