C. S. Forester is best known for his series of eleven historical novels about the early-nineteenth-century British naval officer Horatio Hornblower. A prolific writer, Forester had produced twenty-four books before he conceived the nautical protagonist with whom he was to become indelibly associated. His connection to his hero has tended to obscure his other literary accomplishments, which include thrillers, novels about naval action in both world wars, travel books, and short stories. Many of his works have been adapted as motion pictures, including the classic 1951 film The African Queen.

The youngest of five children, Cecil Lewis Troughton Smith was born in Cairo on 27 August 1899 to George Smith, an official in the Egyptian Ministry of Education, and Sarah Troughton Smith. In his posthumously published autobiography, Long before Forty (1967), Forester sums up his mother's life in Egypt as "fifteen years of warmth and sunshine, of willing servants and pleasant social...