40 Facts About Horatio Hornblower

Horatio Hornblower later became the subject of films and radio and television programmes, and C Northcote Parkinson elaborated a "biography" of him, The True Story of Horatio Hornblower.

Forester's series about Hornblower tales began with the novel The Happy Return, published in 1937.

The name "Horatio Hornblower" was inspired by the character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet and chosen because of its association with contemporary figures such as Nelson.

The surname "Horatio Hornblower" comes from Arthur Hornblow, a Hollywood producer who was a colleague and friend of Forester's.

Horatio Hornblower is courageous and intelligent, and a skilled seaman, but he is burdened by intense reserve, introspection, and self-doubt, and is described as "unhappy and lonely".

Horatio Hornblower consistently ignores or is unaware of the admiration in which he is held by his fellow sailors.

Horatio Hornblower obsesses over petty failures that reinforce his poor self-image.

Horatio Hornblower is guarded with almost everyone, unless the matter is the business of discharging his duty as a king's officer, when he is clear and decisive.

Horatio Hornblower possesses a highly developed sense of duty, though on occasion, he is able to set it aside.

Horatio Hornblower is philosophically opposed to flogging and capital punishment, and is pained when circumstances or the Articles of War force him to impose such sentences.

Horatio Hornblower suffers from seasickness at the start of each of his voyages.

Horatio Hornblower is tone-deaf and finds music an incomprehensible irritant; in a scene in Hornblower and the Hotspur, he is unable to recognise the British national anthem.

Horatio Hornblower uses his ability at whist to supplement his income during a poverty-stricken period of inactivity.

Horatio Hornblower is always off on another mission when a great naval victory occurs during the Napoleonic Wars.

Horatio Hornblower is born in Kent, the son of a physician.

Horatio Hornblower has no inherited wealth or influential connections who can advance his career.

Horatio Hornblower is given a classical education, and by the time he joins the Royal Navy, at the age of 17, he is well versed in Greek and Latin.

Horatio Hornblower is tutored in French by a penniless French emigre and has an aptitude for mathematics, which serves him well as a navigator.

Horatio Hornblower joins the Royal Navy as a midshipman, where he is bullied and tries to resolve the matter with a duel.

Horatio Hornblower fends off fire ships, which interrupt his first examination for promotion to lieutenant.

Horatio Hornblower is given command of the sloop Le Reve while still only an acting lieutenant; the vessel blunders into a Spanish fleet in the fog, resulting in Hornblower's capture and imprisonment in Ferrol.

Horatio Hornblower leads a daring rescue of Spanish crewmen from a shipwreck during a storm, which leads to his being picked up by a British warship patrolling offshore; since he had given his Spanish captors his parole that he would not escape, though, he insists upon being returned to captivity.

Horatio Hornblower uses his skill at whist to supplement his income, playing for money with admirals and other distinguished men in an officers' club.

Horatio Hornblower is sent on a secret mission to recover gold and silver from a sunken British transport on the bottom of Marmorice Bay within the Ottoman Empire with the aid of pearl divers from Ceylon.

The operation is successful, though Horatio Hornblower has a narrow escape from a Turkish warship intent on capturing the gold.

Horatio Hornblower captures Natividad, a much more powerful Spanish ship, but reluctantly has to cede it to El Supremo to placate him.

Horatio Hornblower takes on an important passenger in Panama, Lady Barbara Wellesley, the fictional younger sister of Arthur Wellesley, Horatio Hornblower's future wife and the love of his life.

Horatio Hornblower is at first nettled and infuriated by her forthright and outspoken manner, her ability to see easily through his reserve, and the great social gap between them.

Horatio Hornblower's feelings are disturbed during this period by the fact that his commander, Admiral Leighton, has recently married Lady Barbara, thereby apparently ending any hope that Hornblower and she might act on their feelings for one another.

Horatio Hornblower is tormented by jealousy of Leighton, compounded by the admiral's dismissive treatment of him.

Horatio Hornblower decides that his duty requires that he fight them at one-to-four odds to prevent them from entering a well-protected harbour.

Horatio Hornblower is sent with his coxswain, Brown, and his injured first lieutenant, Bush, to Paris for a show trial and execution on charges of piracy for using a false flag to enter a French-held harbour despite him raising the British ensign before opening fire.

When Horatio Hornblower arrives home, he discovers that his first wife Maria has died in childbirth, that the baby boy survived, and that Lady Barbara has taken charge of the child, with her brothers Lords Wellesley and Wellington as godfathers.

Horatio Hornblower provides assistance in the siege of Riga, employing his bomb ketches against the French army, where he meets General Carl von Clausewitz of the Prussian Army.

Horatio Hornblower is rewarded by being created a peer as Baron Hornblower of Smallbridge in the County of Kent.

When Napoleon returns from exile at the start of the Hundred Days, Horatio Hornblower is staying at the estate of the Comte de Gracay.

Horatio Hornblower leads a Royalist guerrilla force, and causes the returned Emperor's forces much grief before his band is finally cornered; in a desperate shootout, Marie is slain, and Hornblower is captured.

Horatio Hornblower discovers a plot by Lady Barbara to engineer the escape of a Marine bandsman sentenced to death for a minor offence.

Mr Midshipman Hornblower, Lieutenant Hornblower, and Hornblower and the Atropos were compiled in one book, variously titled Hornblower's Early Years, Horatio Hornblower Goes to Sea, or The Young Hornblower.

The Horatio Hornblower novels were all serialised in US periodicals and most in UK periodicals.