Books

First editions, first impressions. Forester (real name Cecil Smith) was called to Hollywood to write a pirate film, working under Arthur Hornblower. Before they had finished the script, another studio released Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn and using the same historical incidents that they had counted on. Rather than seeking another position, hounded by the prospect of a paternity suit, Forester jumped aboard a cargo boat bound for home. Another passenger was the photographer Barbara Sutro. In the voyage, he took a one-day cruise around the Gulf of Fonseca in the ship's motor lifeboat, and by the end of the voyage he had a new novel worked out, The Happy Return, with its characters Hornblower, Bush, and Lady Barbara. Hornblower, with all his human indecisiveness and cross-grainedness, was Forester as he wished he had the courage to be, and Forester wrote about Hornblower again and again. This set includes his unfinished novel Hornblower and The Crisis. Eleven works, octavo (182 x 114 mm). Attractively bound in recent burgundy morocco, titles and gilt ship decoration to spines gilt, single gilt rule to covers gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges. The occasional minor blemish, an excellent set.

The Happy Return is the first novel in the Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester. The book portrays the adventures of the fictional naval officer Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic Wars as he sails to Central America on a secret mission for the British government.