C. S. Forester – Lieutenant Hornblower

This book is only available as an eBook.

Lieutenant Hornblower (published in 1952) is a Horatio Hornblower novel written by C. S. Forester.  It is the second book in the series chronologically, but the seventh by order of publication.

The book is unique in the series in being told not from Horatio Hornblower’s point of view, but rather from Bush’s.    This helped Forester to explain Hornblower’s unsuitable first marriage besides giving an objective view of Hornblower himself.  This unusual narrative perspective also allows Forester to sustain a mystery, advanced hint by hint in the course of the novel, about how Captain Sawyer came to be injured—an event possibly witnessed by Hornblower.

“I recommend Forester to every literate I know.” –Ernest Hemingway