Other Forester Books

The Hornblower pages on the website were among the first I added to my old homepage site years ago. I didn't really look into the author. Have now had a look and he seems to have a lot of books but not all in the age of sail (land based & WWII ones).

So far I've found
Factual books: 'The Naval War of 1812' (first published as 'The age of fighting sail'), 'The Barbary Pirates' and 'The Adventures of John Wetherell.'
Fiction books: 'The Captain from Connecticut' (set in 1812) and 'To the Indies' about a Columbus voyage.

Does anyone know of any other age of sail based works he has written?

I'll look into it and let you know what I find, sir. Pardon my saying, but thus far, I own every early copy of Forrester's work that I can get my greedy little hands on. Both of the aforementioned works are wonderful, though 'Age of Fighting Sail' seemed lackluster in comparision to his other factual works.

Though, I'll begin looking into other works of Mr. Forrester and I'll report back with my findings.

Capt._Sidney_Cochrane wrote:I'll look into it and let you know what I find, sir. .....................

Though, I'll begin looking into other works of Mr. Forrester and I'll report back with my findings.

Thanks for your help

I'm reading Captain From Connecticut now and it's a cracking good read.

An unpublished Forester crime novel 'The Pursued' has emerged and is about to be published by Penguin. Info from the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15327043

I read The Captain from Connecticut several years ago as I had finished Hornblower and was looking for anything else Forester had written. Again, I was out cruising in the Canadian Gulf Islands west of the straits of Georgia and it seemed every small island town had at least one good book store. I had never heard of this book, but found a 1st edition HB copy (Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1941) in Ganges, BC. Had to pay $2.00 Canadian for it, but the jacket price was only $2.50.

I enjoyed the book, but after reading it I wondered why Forester didn't use Captain Peabody as an American version of Hornblower. Obviously, Peabody was already a captain and the War of 1812 didn't give you an extended timeline to work with, and of course, America's navy was still fledgling at best. The book jacket also mentions that The Captain from Connecticut originally appeared in serial form in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post a very popular weekly magazine in the U.S.

C.S. Forester was involved in "government work" of some kind during WW2, and he was still in the middle of the Hornblower series, which had began in 1936, so possibly that remained his primary AOS focus at that time. But I sure wish he'd chosen to make this a series because it was a good read for me.

It's in my library.

Perusing the 'Forester Society' has brought a wealth of 'I didn't know that' information and I do recommend the Free E-Membership offer to members of the forum who haven't joined, but lest I get "off subject" my intent is to add a work by C.S. Forester that I didn't know about before reading the 'society newsletter'.

The book is Long Before Forty and it's the 'autobiography' of the writer. Most are familiar with the 'biography' written by his son (limited edition of 250 copies), the Forester's life 'in his own words' has got to be a 'first read'. Last published in 1988, it is still available from Amazon in hardback. Now, if I can only find it in Kindle.

Further research on Long before Forty shows that it was written by C.S. Forester when he was 31 years old (circa 1930) but never published until it was found in a safety deposit box after his death in 1966. His wife had it published in 1967 by Forester's British publisher Michael Joseph.

It was later published in an American edition as late as 1988.

Based on the 'cutoff' of 1931, it is likely that the 'Hornblower novels' do not figure into this autobiography. I'll know more in a few days when my copy arrives from the bookseller, as there does not appear to be a Kindle version.

My copy of the above mentioned book has arrived and though I haven't read it yet, it does appear to be a bit of a mystery.

The book appears to be in near new condition, but with no DJ. It is published by Amereon House in Mattituck, NY. There is no ISBN # and it states:Copyright (C) 1964 BY C.S. Forester. It also states that it is printed in a limited edition of 100 copies.

I'm most intrigued by the statement that it was 'copyright 1964' because of information on the circumstances surrounding it's original publishing in 1967 seem to be widely accepted.

I suppose this could be an 'unauthorized knock-off'. Any thoughts?

Having bought The Jamaican Affair from the Enet publishers, I continue to receive information on their latest offerings.

Enet is a ebook publisher owned and operated by C.S. Forester's two sons (along with one other fellow). I was interested to see that they have now published 10 of the 12 books in the Hornblower series, as well as several of their fathers other 'war' novels. According to their 'blurb', they intend to publish his entire body of work.

http://www.csforester.us/csf_works.html

Evidently, C.S.Forester's "impact" through his writing has continued even to this day:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-general-john-kelly-2017-8

While this C.S. Forester story didn't make it into book form, it did nevertheless find it's way to Hollywood in 1942, by way of Cosmopolitan Magazine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commandos_Strike_at_Dawn

Thanks for this, 80; certainly a new one to me.