Mr Midshipman Hornblower

1793, the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, and Midshipman Horatio Hornblower receives his first command . . . As a seventeen-year-old with a touch of sea sickness, young Horatio Hornblower hardly cuts a dash in His Majesty's navy. Yet from the moment he is ordered to board a French merchant ship in the Bay of Biscay and take command of crew and cargo, he proves his seafaring mettle on the waves. With a character-forming duel, several chases and some strange tavern encounters, the young Hornblower is soon forged into a formidable man of the sea.

This is the first of eleven books chronicling the nautical adventures of C. S. Forester's inimitable hero, Horatio Hornblower.
I recommend Forester to every literate I know
Ernest Hemingway

About C.S. Forester

C. S. Forester (1899-1966) was born in Cairo, where his father was a government official. On the outbreak of the Second World War, he entered the Ministry of Information. As well as the famous Horatio Hornblower series, his novels include The African Queen, adapted into the famous film, and crime novels Plain Murder and The Pursued.
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