Short Hornblower Stories
We are all familiar with Hornblower during the Crisis. It was a late publication. It combines a couple of short stories. These short stories were actually originally published outside of the confines of books, and published by magazines. There are 5 of them. Featuring our Hornblower- two as Lieutenant, two as Captain, and one as Admiral of the Fleet. A potential mutiny thwarted, an Irish uprising out foxed, help to hundreds, managing a healthy sea voyage for an ailing monarch, and meeting once again Napoleon Bonaparte - very different insights into this complex man Hornblower.
Only a few of the stories at artwork associated with them. For now, here is something familiar to a lot of you:
āHornblower & the Crisisā first edition, first printing cover. Published 1 January 1967.
Argosy Magazine, May 1950. This magazine is where C.S. Forester published multiple short stories for the Hornblower Saga.
C S Foresterās book, Hornblower One More Time, was specially produced and published in the USA in 1976 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Horatio Hornblower on 4th July 1776. The first edition run was limited to 350 numbered copies
āHornblower One More Timeā by C.S. Foresterā published 1976.
The core parts of the book are three short stories about Hornblower. A very well done preface is done by Alexander Kent. This is followed by a short chapter entitled āHornblower and Iā, written by Mr. Forester in 1956 and another chapter, āHornblowerās Londonā, published in 1955, wherein he āreminisces about his boyhoodā and of course about Hornblower. The book also contains āA Forester Checklistā showing the books written by him between 1924 and 1971 (some published after his death in 1967). There is āA Hornblower Chronologyā going from his birth on 4th July 1776 up until his death, said to be on 12th January 1857 at the age of 80. Finally, at the end of the book there is a very amusing āBallade to an Old Friendā, written in 1956. Here, Mr. Forester writes about āhorrid Horry mawkish matelotā. By then he had written eight Hornblower books with Hornblower and the Atropos being the latest.
Hornblower enthusiasts will be very familiar with the eleven books that cover most of his career. They will also be users of The Hornblower Companion with its thirty maps showing where most of his naval action took place. However, not all his followers will know of these so-called āmissingā short stories:
The Hand of Destiny (1940)
Hornblowerās Charitable Offering (1941)
Hornblower and His Majesty (1940)
They were published as magazine articles in 1940 and 1941. By then, Mr. Forester had only published three full Hornblower novels, The Happy Return in 1937, A Ship of the Line in 1938 and Flying Colours, also in 1938. His fourth Hornblower novel, The Commodore, did not appear until 1945. In print form, the three stories were not published again until 1976 in Hornblower One More Time.
In The Hand of Destiny, set between October and December 1796, Hornblower is seconded from HMS Indefatigable to fill one of the vacancies for lieutenants on the frigate, HMS Marguerite, caused by āthe courts-martial upon two lieutenants driven franticā by the bullying of the shipās bloody tyrant of a commander, Captain Courtney. I will not say any more here about what happened next and how Hornblower was eventually able to return to the Indefatigable and her captain, āthe just and humane Sir Edward Pellewā.
The second story, Hornblowerās Charitable Offering, is set in June 1810 when he is in the Mediterranean and captain of a ā74ā, HMS Sutherland. This episode could have been slotted in between chapters 8 and 9 of the novel, A Ship of the Line, as she sailed from Gibraltar to rendezvous with HMS Pluto and HMS Caligula off the coast of Spain. During her voyage, the ship picked up two French seamen from a raft after their escape as prisoners of war of the Spanish from the Balearic island of Cabrera. I shall again not say here how this had occurred and what happened next. As an aside, however, the Pluto was the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Percy Leighton who was at the time married to Lady Barbara, much to the jealous anguish of Hornblower.
āHornblower and His Majestyā original artwork associated with short story 1940
The third story, Hornblower and His Majesty, is set in 1813, the period after Hornblowerās return as a sick man from the Baltic in the previous year, as related in The Commodore, and before his return to active service via HMS Porta Coeli in October 1813, as described in Lord Hornblower. He is in command of the Royal Yacht, HMS Augusta, with orders to take the mentally ailing King George III on a short sea cruise as an experiment to see if such an experience would be beneficial to the Kingās health. Sailing along the south coast of England at night and in thick fog, the Augusta loses contact with her escort, the twenty-gun corvette, HMS Cormorant. At the time, there were relatively well-armed and fast American commerce raiders operating in the English Channel.
āDecember issue of Argosy magazineā circa 1938-1940
Mr. Forester chose not to merge any of these three stories into the eleven Hornblower novels. They had various inconsistencies, mainly of dates, which would not have fitted in with the main books. The āPublisherās Afterwordā in Hornblower One More Time addresses these various inconsistencies and offers persuasive arguments for their omission from the Hornblower canon. They were written for magazines, probably against a deadline and, in 1940/41, long before Mr. Forester had settled down to foresee how Hornblowerās entire life and career would develop. By that stage, only three full Hornblower novels existed. By comparison, each one of the short stories are a story in its own. So, wether or not if you believe they are āclassic Foresterā or if you believe he had not fleshed out HH yet- finding these stories are worth it. I have these on PDF- please contact me and I can send them to you, as they are all widely available. Obviously, Hornblower & the Crisis (UK)/Hornblower During the Crisis (US)- is widely known and published. Hornblower One More Time is something of a rarity, so if you have an opportunity to buy one of these- it will be expensive, but it is worth the investment.
