SOURCE: Grainger, John D. “Who Was Hornblower?” History Today 49, no. 10 (October 1999): 32-3.

In the following essay, Grainger explores probable models for the character Horatio Hornblower.

C. S. Forester's fictional sailor of the Napoleonic Wars, Captain Horatio Hornblower, was an immediate success when he first appeared in 1937, in The Happy Return. Sequels continued his story as he found love, promotion and worldly success. The books are still in print, and have been newly adapted into television films.

A recent biography of Admiral Sir James Gordon has claimed that he provides the ‘matrix’ for Hornblower's career (Bryan Perrett, The Real Hornblower, 1998). It appears, however, that the author's clinching argument for his theory is that Hornblower's absence from a particular campaign (on the Potomac in 1812) is proof of its correctness. It is perhaps better to consider Hornblower's fictional career more widely and look at Forester's methods and sources.

Forester was a...