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Hornblower's Creator:

C.S. FORESTER

Not to be confused with C.S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) or E.M. Forster (author of A Room with a View and Howard's End), the author C.S. Forester was the mastermind behind Horatio Hornblower.  While he would not develop the idea for his popular character until later, the origins of Hornblower could be said to have their roots in a 1927 purchase by Forester of three volumes of The Naval Chronicle which he read while cruising in his boat, Annie Marble, during a year-long trip through the coastal and inland waterways of France and Germany.  Hornblower himself was later conceived during a sea voyage on the Margaret Johnson between California and the UK in 1937 (though El Supremo was actually the first character of the series to be given a name).

The following is a general chronology of Forester's life and career (from C.S. Forester and the Hornblower Saga by Sanford Sternlicht)

• 1899 - Born Cecil Lewis Troughton Smith in Cairo, Egypt, on August 27, to George Smith, a British government official in the Ministry of Education, and Sara Troughton.  He was the youngest of five children.

• 1901 - Sara Smith takes the children to Camberwell, London, for their education.

• 1902 - Cecil begins infant's school.

• 1911 - Enrolled in the Alleyn's School.

• 1915 - Enrolled in Dulwich College.

• 1917 - Rejected for army service in World War I.

• 1918 - Began medical studies at Guy's Hospital, London.

• 1921 - Dropped out of medical school, broke with his family, and assumed the pen name Cecil Scott Forester.

• 1924 - Napoleon and His Court, The Paid Piper, and A Pawn Among Kings

• 1925 - Josephine, Napoleon's Empress.

• 1926 - Payment Deferred.  Married Kathleen Belcher.

• 1927 - Love Lies Dreaming, Victor Emanuel II and the Union of Italy, and The Wonderful Week

• 1928 - Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre and The Shadow of the Hawk.  Boating in France.

• 1929 - Brown on Resolution, Nelson, and The Voyage of the "Annie Marble."  Boating in Germany.

• 1930 - The "Annie Marble" in Germany and Plain Murder.

• 1931 - Two and Twenty.

• 1932 - Death to the French.  Moved to California.

• 1933 - The Gun.

• 1934 - The Peacemaker.

• 1935 - The African Queen.

• 1936 - The General.

• 1937 - The Happy Return (Beat to Quarters).  Forester conceived of Horatio Hornblower on a sea voyage.  Went to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War for the New York Times.

• 1938 - Flying Colours, A Ship of the Line.  European correspondent for the New York Times.

• 1940 - The Earthly Paradise.  Began working for the British Ministry of Information.  Sailed on various British warships for background information.

• 1941 - The Captain from Connecticut.

• 1943 - The Ship. Crippled by arteriosclerosis while on board the U.S.S. Tennessee in combat. Returned to California.

• 1944 - Divorced.

• 1945 - The Commodore (Commodore Hornblower).  Returned to Royal Navy vessels in the Pacific.

• 1946 - Lord Hornblower.

• 1947 - Married Dorothy Ellen Foster.

• 1948 - The Sky and the Forest.  Suffered heart attack.

• 1950 - Mr. Midshipman Hornblower and Randall and the River of Time.

• 1952 - Lieutenant Hornblower.

• 1953 - Hornblower and the Atropos. Declined honors (may have been Commander of the British Empire or Order of the British Empire) from Queen Elizabeth II, stating he did not deserve the honor.

• 1955 - The Good Shepherd.

• 1956 - The Age of Fighting Sail.

• 1958 - (Admiral) Hornblower in the West Indies.

• 1959 - Hunting the Bismarck.

• 1961 - Hornblower and the Hotspur.

• 1962 - Suffered second heart attack.

• 1964 - The Hornblower Companion.  Suffered a severe stroke and was paralyzed.

• 1966 - Died of heart failure in Fullerton, California, on April 2.

• 1967 - Hornblower and the Crisis and Long Before Forty published posthumously.