The Hornblower Companion, C.S. Forester 1964. This maritime book is titled “The Hornblower Companion”, it was written by C.S. Forester and published by Little Brown in 1964, and it’s a first edition (“first edition” is stated on the copyright page.) The book is an atlas and personal commentary on the writing of the Hornblower Saga, which was based on Horatio Hornblower, a fictional naval officer created by Forester in 1937. Hornblower was a protagonist - the good guy - in a number of novels set during the Napoleonic Wars. Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (1899 - 1966), known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was a British novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, including the Horatio Hornblower series; he also wrote “The African Queen”, the 1935 book which was turned into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart in 1951. Typical of some of the stories: as commander of the frigate HMS Lydia (pictured on the cover), Hornblower makes a long, difficult voyage round the Horn to the Pacific, where his mission is to support a megalomaniac, El Supremo, in a rebellion against the Spanish. Hornblower captures Natividad, a much more powerful Spanish ship, but reluctantly has to cede it to El Supremo to pacify him. When he finds that the Spanish have switched sides, he is forced to find and sink the ship he had captured - adding injury to insult, because he had given up the prize money to maintain an uneasy alliance with the madman. Later, as an officer in the British Royal Navy, Hornblower takes on an important passenger in Panama, Lady Barbara Wellesley, the fictional younger sister of Arthur Wellesley (later to become the Duke of Wellington). At first he is bothered by her forthright and outspoken manner, her ability to see through his reserve, and the great social gap between them. Over time, however, she wins his heart with her beauty, strength, and intelligence, and the two become dangerously attracted to each other. Before things get out of hand, Hornblower informs Lady Barbara that he is married. She leaves the Lydia two days later when they rendezvous with other British ships, and Hornblower fears for his career, having offended "the daughter of an earl, the sister of a marquis". But romance is already in the air. (And Hornblower’s wife later dies in childbirth ….) The Hornblower series by Forester consisted of 11 novels (one unfinished) and five short stories. In addition, The Hornblower Companion includes maps showing where the action took place in the ten complete novels and Forester's notes on what he was thinking as he wrote each one. The Hornblower Companion has maroon boards with gilt lettering on the spine and a gilt image of HMS Lydia on the front cover, blank endpapers, a frontis depicting warships in battle, the title page describes the book as “An Atlas and Personal Commentary on the Writing of the Hornblower Saga, with Illustrations and Maps by Samuel Bryant”, two pages of Contents, a one-page bibliography about the titles in the Hornblower series, thirty maps with notes on each one, and the text runs to page 149. The book measures 10 1/4 x 8 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages and text for the most part, with just faint brown spots here and there, light rubbing at the heel and crown and at the tips, two tips are slightly turned in, and the book is a perfect complement to all the books in the Hornblower series. It ties everything together, and we’ve priced the book without a dust jacket - yes, the book goes for even more with a dust jacket. #161 #1614