Life in Nelson's Navy - Softcover

Dudley Pope

4.09

112 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861760345 ISBN 13: 9781861760340

Publisher: Pen & Sword Books, 2007

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Real history with the narrative grip of the best fiction. The best background to the sea fiction of C S Forester, Alexander Kent and Patrick O'Brian. Specially commissioned cover painting by Geoff Hunt. This is a gripping account of how the men of Nelson's navy lived and fought, written by the author of the ever-popular Ramage sagas. Based on years of research and reading in contemporary sources, it brings alive, in a way that few other books have done, naval shipboard life during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Every aspect is covered: the Navy's ships and their weapons, the daily routine of officers and men, the harsh discipline and punishments, the Press Gang, the threat of disease and how the Navy sought to combat it, and the ever-present lure of prize money. It describes how the men who won the battles of Cape St Vincent, the Nile and Trafalgar lived their daily lives, and how in spite of all the hardships they faced, they dominated the seas so completely throughout the Napoleonic Wars. This highly readable book will delight and enlighten all those who seek a vivid yet accurate account of life in the Navy of Nelson's era. DUDLEY POPE served in the Second World War as a cadet in the Merchant Navy until wounded in the Battle of the Atlantic. During seventeen years in Fleet Street as a naval correspondent he began his career as an historian and in 1959 he resigned to become a full-time writer. In 1965 he set sail for the West Indies, where he and his wife lived and cruised until his death in 1997. His other non-fiction books include the best-selling England Expects and Flag 4, both available from Chatham. SEVENTH REPRINT OF THIS EDITION

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About the Author:

Dudley Bernard Egerton Pope was born in 1925 into an ancient Cornish seafaring family. He joined the Merchant Navy at the age of sixteen and spent much of his early life at sea. He was torpedoed during the Second World War and resulting spinal injuries plagued him for the rest of his life. Towards the end of the war Pope turned to journalism, becoming the Naval and Defence Correspondent for the 'London Evening News'. At this time he also researched naval history and in time became an authority on the Napoleonic era and Nelson's exploits, resulting in several well received volumes, especially on the Battles of Copenhagen and Trafalgar. Encouraged by Hornblower creator CS Forester, he also began writing fiction using his own experiences in the Navy and his extensive historical research as a basis. In 1965, he wrote 'Ramage', the first of his highly successful series of novels following the exploits of the heroic 'Lord Nicholas Ramage' during the Napoleonic Wars. Another renowned series is centred on 'Ned Yorke', a buccaneer in the seventeenth century Caribbean and then with a descendant following the 'Yorke' family naval tradition when involved in realistic secret operations during the Second World War. Dudley Pope lived aboard boats whenever possible, along with his wife and daughter, and this was where he wrote the majority of his novels. Most of his adult life was spent in the Caribbean and in addition to using the locale for fictional settings he also wrote authoritatively on naval history of the region, including a biography of the buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan. He died in 1997 aged seventy one. 'The first and still favourite rival to Hornblower' - Daily Mirror

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