Forester, C(ecil) S(cott) (1899–1966)

English novelist. He is best known for a series of historical novels set in the Napoleonic era that, beginning with The Happy Return (1937), cover the career – from midshipman to admiral – of Horatio Hornblower. One of the series, A Ship of the Line (1939), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

His first novel, Payment Deferred (1926), was a subtle crime novel, and he also wrote The African Queen (1935), filmed in 1952 with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. His other novels include Death to the French (1932), The Gun (1933), The General (1936), Brown on Resolution (1938) (a study of patriotism), and The Ship (1943).

Forester was born in Cairo, Egypt. Educated at Dulwich College, London, he studied medicine at Guy's Hospital but embarked upon a literary career following the success of Payment Deferred.

The other books in the ‘Hornblower’ series are Flying Colours (1938), The Commodore (1944), Lord Hornblower (1946), Mr Midshipman Hornblower (1950), Hornblower and the ‘Atropos’ (1953), Hornblower in the West Indies (1958), and Hornblower and the ‘Hotspur’ (1962).