Lord Nelson: The Immortal Memory

Chronicles the life and career of Enland's most famus admiral, detailing his early experiences in the British Navy, commands, marriage to Fanny Nisbet, affair with Lady Hamilton, and role in the battle of Trafalgar

Nelson was the almost perfect hero, not only a fearless fighter, brilliant tactician and great admiral, but so loved that when he died at Trafalgar, while devastating the combined French and Spanish fleets, his fleet "forgot its vic tory in an astonishing spontaneous outburst of grief." His failings were a boyish vanity and an unfaithfulness to his wife. Though Nelson is the subject of many previous biographies, David Howarth ( The Voyage of the Armada, 1066 ) and Stephen Howarth ( The Knights Templar ) write of him here with a verve and intimacy of detail that make their book as appealing as the admiral himself. They trace his life from his birth in a Norfolk parsonage to his early commands in the West Indies, to his remarkable subsequent career, providing intriguing analyses of his greatest victoriesat the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgarand following the entire course of his adulterous passion for Lady Hamilton who, second to duty, was his greatest love. Photos.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This latest biography of the dashing Lord Nelson brings together the talents of two widely published military historians: The result is a readable, credible portrait of one of England's greatest seamen. Evidencing careful research (although one would like to have endnotes or at least a list of sources) and written with a fine eye for the telling anecdote and wider sweep of history, it seems likely, along with Tom Pocock's Horatio Nelson (LJ 4/15/88) to be the standard popular life for some time to come. Scholars will also find the work useful, although Pocock's is perhaps a bit deeper, and earlier lives such as Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Life of Nelson (1897. Greenwood, 1968. reprint) remain important. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.
- James A. Casada, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.