Hornblower and the Hotspur was published by Michael Joseph in 1962. Hornblower, newly promoted to Commander, takes the sloop HMS Hotspur to the approaches to Brest in early 1803 — the brief Peace of Amiens is ending, war with Napoleon is about to resume, and Hornblower’s task is to watch the French fleet and report its movements.
The novel is the most domestic of the series: Hornblower has just married Maria (a woman he does not love, married from a mixture of pity and obligation), and his letters home — full of duty and empty of affection — reveal the emotional constipation that makes him such a convincing character. At sea, he is brilliant; at home, he is hopeless. The contrast drives the novel’s emotional core.
The naval action is small-scale (coastal raids, cutting-out expeditions, the cat-and-mouse of inshore reconnaissance) but meticulously rendered. Forester was terminally ill when he wrote this novel — he died in 1966 — and the writing has a concentrated precision that suggests a man working against time to complete his life’s work.
Collecting Hornblower and the Hotspur
First edition (Michael Joseph, London, 1962): Blue cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition with jacket, fine/fine: $100–$300
- Without jacket, very good: $30–$80
- US first (Little, Brown): $50–$150