The Horatio Hornblower Novels: The Happy Return, Flying Colours Including A Ship of the Line, The Commodore, Lord Hornblower, Lieutenant Hornblower, Hornblower and the Atropos, Hornblower and the West Indies, Hornblower and the Hotspur, Hornblower and the Crisis.

FORESTER, C.S.

Item Number: 146521

London : Michael Joseph Ltd, 1937-1967.

Finely bound collection of 10 first edition Horatio Hornblower novels, the popular C.S. Forester series chronicling the heroic adventures of a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars. Octavo, ten volumes uniformly bound in three quarter crushed levant navy morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, top edge gilt. The collection includes first editions of The Happy Return [1937], Flying Colours Including A Ship of the Line [1938], The Commodore [1945], Lord Hornblower [1946], Mr. Midshipman Hornblower [1950], Lieutenant Hornblower [1952], Hornblower and the Atropos [1953], Hornblower and the West Indies [1958], Hornblower and the Hotspur [1962], Hornblower and the Crisis [1967]. In fine condition. An exceptional set.

Cecil Louis Troughton Smith, known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic wars. The Hornblower novels A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1938. His other works include The African Queen (1935; turned into a 1951 film by John Huston) and The Good Shepherd (1955; turned into a 2020 film, Greyhound, adapted by and starring Tom Hanks).