SOURCE: Hastings, Max. “The Man Who Ruled the Waves.” Spectator 283, no. 8941-42 (18 December 1999): 32.

In the following essay, Hastings marks the centenary of Forester's birth with a retrospective of the author's works.

‘It was not long after dawn that Captain Hornblower came up on the quarterdeck of the Lydia.’ Thus, in February 1937, C. S. Forester launched upon the billows one of the most famous figures in historical fiction with the first words of his novel The Happy Return. His highly-strung and much-loved mariner sailed on thereafter through the ten bestsellers which succeeded the first.

Today, Forester's reputation is in eclipse, overtaken in his own element by Patrick O'Brian, who is perceived—with some justice—as a writer of greater depth and staying power (though dear John Keegan remains passionately loyal to Hornblower, complaining that ‘nothing ever happens in O'Brian's books’). The recent television series based upon the Hornblower oeuvre...