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I know that a number of you on the forum are Horatio Hornblower fans. Probably through my reading of your occasional posts, I realized that I had always conflated Horatio Alger, the prolific 19th century author of rags-to-riches novels for youngsters, with Horatio Hornblower, the hero of C.S. Forester's 20th century best selling series on the exploits of a British naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars.
Very different. And since I had no interest at all in exploring the former I missed out on the latter until just a month or two ago.
What happened was I came across an e-book version of one of the Hornblower novels for $1.99, remembered what it was about, and gave it a whirl. I loved it!
The series covers Hornblower's ~ 30-year career from his days as a midshipman to his becoming an admiral. Surely one of its appeals to the reader is that while Hornblower invariably does the right thing, is intelligent, brave, and ethical, a fine leader of men, he is also beset by an ingrained self-doubt. I think we all, if we are in the least self-aware, harbor occasional self-doubts, and would like to believe that even so, when it matters, we will be able, like Hornblower, to do the right thing.
Anyway, I decided that I'd like a hard copy set of the complete series for my library. Seeing what was available, I thought this would do very nicely:
Unfortunately, the cheapest set I could find of this edition was on eBay for $999... Time to rein in my enthusiasm for a beautiful edition and look for something more reasonably priced:
About $80, shipped, from various used booksellers. Three omnibus volumes, two novels that didn't make it into the omnibuses, a companion explanatory text by the author, and one free extra novel sent by a bookseller by mistake.
I think eighty bucks is a great deal. I am constantly amazed at how cheap used books are these days.
As for Hornblower, I think I still prefer O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, but I like Hornblower very much, am glad that I finally got around to reading him, and am pleased to have him among my favorites in my library.
Very different. And since I had no interest at all in exploring the former I missed out on the latter until just a month or two ago.
What happened was I came across an e-book version of one of the Hornblower novels for $1.99, remembered what it was about, and gave it a whirl. I loved it!
The series covers Hornblower's ~ 30-year career from his days as a midshipman to his becoming an admiral. Surely one of its appeals to the reader is that while Hornblower invariably does the right thing, is intelligent, brave, and ethical, a fine leader of men, he is also beset by an ingrained self-doubt. I think we all, if we are in the least self-aware, harbor occasional self-doubts, and would like to believe that even so, when it matters, we will be able, like Hornblower, to do the right thing.
Anyway, I decided that I'd like a hard copy set of the complete series for my library. Seeing what was available, I thought this would do very nicely:
Unfortunately, the cheapest set I could find of this edition was on eBay for $999... Time to rein in my enthusiasm for a beautiful edition and look for something more reasonably priced:
About $80, shipped, from various used booksellers. Three omnibus volumes, two novels that didn't make it into the omnibuses, a companion explanatory text by the author, and one free extra novel sent by a bookseller by mistake.
I think eighty bucks is a great deal. I am constantly amazed at how cheap used books are these days.
As for Hornblower, I think I still prefer O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, but I like Hornblower very much, am glad that I finally got around to reading him, and am pleased to have him among my favorites in my library.
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