Bibliograph

Ship of the line, by C. S. Forester

Type

Label

Ship of the line, by C. S. Forester

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

Ship of the line

Responsibility statement

by C. S. Forester

Series statement

Hornblower saga, [7]

Summary

May 1810, seventeen years deep into the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Horatio Hornblower is newly in command of his first ship of the line, the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland, which he deems "the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List." Moreover, she is 250 men short of a full crew, so Hornblower must enlist and train "poachers, bigamists, sheepstealers," and other landlubbers. By the time the Sutherland reaches the blockaded Catalonian coast of Spain, the crew is capable of staging five astonishing solo raids against the French. But the grisly prospect of defeat and capture looms for both captain and crew as the Sutherland single-handedly takes on four French ships

Classification