Table of Contents

* Burnham Thorpe * Chatham, the Arctic and the West Indies * The Mosquito Shore * The North American Station * France and the Leeward Islands * The Island of Nevis * Norfolk * The Mediterranean * The Palazzo Sessa * Corsica * Cape St Vincent * Cadiz and Tenerife * Bath, London and Toulon * Ab Qr * Naples * Naples * Palazzo Reale * Palermo * The Bay of Naples * The Colli Palace * Germany * London and Fonthill * The Channel * The Kattegat * Copenhagen * The Thames Valley and Boulogne * Merton Place * The West Country * Surrey * The Victory * Return to Merton * Portsmouth * The Atlantic Approaches * Trafalgar * Mourning * St Pauls * The Fate of Characters Whose End Is Not Recorded in the Text

About the Author

Christopher Hibbert has written many well-received biographies, including, most recently, Queen Victoria. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an honourary Doctor of Letters of Leicester University.

Reviews

In this biography of Viscount Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), Hibbert, a recipient of the Royal Society of Literature award, uses sources such as journals, newspapers, manuscripts, and letters to offer a factually correct account that nonetheless leaves Nelson's character undeveloped. There is biographical information about Nelson and his career, but the main themes are his love life and his ego. Certainly, his affair with Lady Hamilton and his relationship with their daughter were important to his life, but since his naval victories are the reason for his fame, the fact that they receive so little attention here is disappointing. This book would work well in a large collection of British and military biographies where other aspects of his life and character could be found; for smaller libraries, David Howarth's Lord Nelson: The Immortal Memory (LJ 2/1/89) would be better.-Marilyn Dailey, Natrona Cty. P.L., Casper, Wy.

Self-promoting, vain, risk-taking, thirsty for recognition and glory, English admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805)-who crippled Napoleon's fleets in the French Revolutionary wars-fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a sea officer. In this rousing, seaworthy biography, we meet a vexatious man whose short temper was exacerbated by the loss of an arm and an eye in combat. Falling madly in love with exuberant, obese ex-prostitute Lady Emma Hamilton, the wife of his host in Naples, British envoy Sir William Hamilton, Nelson neglected his own wife and later went through a mock marriage ceremony with Emma to sanctify his adulterous affair and assuage guilt. We also glimpse his softer side-financially generous to relatives; tenderly solicitous toward Horatia, his daughter by Emma; and stoic in pain, especially when mortally wounded in the Battle of Trafalgar, his tragic victory over the combined fleets of France and Spain. Drawing on letters and diaries of Nelson, Emma and their contemporaries, British historian Hibbert, biographer of Elizabeth I, has produced a magnificent flesh-and-blood portrait that minutely re-creates Nelson's daily cares, loves, feuds, battles, scandals and exploits. (Dec.)