Forester, Cecil Scott (1899-1966), was an English novelist who won fame for his fictional creation of Horatio Hornblower, a British naval hero of the 1800’s. Hornblower’s exciting adventures, his coolness and inventiveness under stress, and his weakness for women endeared him to a large reading public. Hornblower rises from midshipman to admiral in a series of novels that includes Beat to Quarters (1937), Flying Colours (1938), A Ship of the Line (1939), and Lord Hornblower (1946). Forester’s adventure novel The African Queen (1935) was made into a popular motion picture in 1951.
Forester believed his other novels, especially The General (1936), were equal to the Hornblower books. But his readers overwhelmingly favored the naval hero.
Forester was born on Aug. 27, 1899, in Cairo, Egypt, and was educated in England. He lived in the United States from 1945 until his death on April 2, 1966.
