#1 – Mr Midshipman Hornblower
1793, the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, and Midshipman Horatio Hornblower receives his first command... As a seventeen-year-old with a touch of seasickness, young Horatio Hornblower hardly cuts a dash in His Majesty's Navy, Yet from the moment he is ordered to board a French merchant…
#3 – Hornblower and the Hotspur
April 1803. The Peace of Amiens is breaking down. Napoleon is building ships and amassing an army just across the Channel. Horatio Hornblower -- who, at age twenty-seven, has already distinguished himself as one of the most daring and resourceful officers in the Royal Navy --…
#4 – Flying Colours
Hornblower faces charges of violating the laws of war and probable execution by Napoleon's French forces.
#4 – Hornblower During the Crisis
In 1805 Hornblower leaves HMS Hotspur and, after helping capture a French vessel, obtains documents that could be used to forge orders from Napoleon. The unfinished novel and Forester’s surviving outline send him on an intelligence operation intended to draw Villeneuve’s fleet toward the confrontation at…
#5 – Hornblower and the Atropos
After helping organise the river procession for Nelson’s state funeral, newly promoted Captain Hornblower takes command of the small sloop HMS Atropos. His Mediterranean assignment develops into a hazardous salvage operation in Ottoman waters and a confrontation with a much larger Spanish frigate.
#5 – Lord Hornblower
As his naval battles with Napoleon conclude, Horatio Hornblower must rescue a man he knows to be a tyrant from the mutiny of his crew.
#6 – Beat to Quarters
In 1808 Captain Hornblower commands HMS Lydia on a secret mission off Central America. Ordered to support the unstable rebel leader El Supremo and destroy the Spanish ship Natividad, he must rapidly reassess his alliances when Britain and Spain cease to be enemies, while carrying Lady…
#7 – Ship of the Line
In 1810 Hornblower receives his first ship of the line, HMS Sutherland, and joins operations off the Catalan coast. With an understrength and inexperienced crew, he attacks French coastal positions and shipping before a final battle leaves his ship shattered and Hornblower a prisoner.
#9 – Commodore Hornblower
In 1812 Hornblower commands a small British squadron sent to the Baltic to influence Sweden and Russia against Napoleon. The mission combines diplomacy involving Crown Prince Bernadotte and Tsar Alexander I, an assassination attempt, cooperation with Carl von Clausewitz and naval support during the defence of…
#11 – Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
In the early 1820s Rear-Admiral Hornblower commands Britain’s West Indies station. Across linked episodes he confronts a Bonapartist rescue plot, slavery and the slave trade, piracy, Simón Bolívar’s independence struggle and a destructive hurricane, showing how political unrest continues after the Napoleonic Wars.
#12 – Hornblower’s Temptation and the Last Encounter
This entry brings together two short stories that are also commonly published with Hornblower and the Crisis. “Hornblower’s Temptation”, also known as “Hornblower and the Widow McCool”, is set during Hornblower’s early lieutenant years, while “The Last Encounter” follows the elderly Hornblower’s meeting with Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte…