Awards

• Short-listed for Marsh Biography Award 2003
• Shortlisted for Marsh Biography Award 2003.

Overview

Horatio Nelson was a naval genius and a natural born predator. In his private life as in war he was ruthless. A fanatic for duty, at times beyond all sense, he was also a royalist so infatuated with the divine right of kings that he began to see himself as an instrument of God. At the height of his fame Nelson was half unhinged: a generous man who wanted his wife dead; besotted with Emma Hamilton but jealously unsure of her; at odds with his honourable father; at law with his old mentor Earl St Vincent, and damning the Lords of the Admiralty as a set of beasts. Written with access to letters and documents and with previously unpublished material, Terry Coleman provides penetrating and true picture of Nelson as we have never seen him before.

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9780747559009

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Reviews

'Utterly convincing and completely engrossing' EVENING STANDARD 'Compelling and impeccably researched' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Vastly illuminating ...a superb biography' GUARDIAN

This is an excellent new biography of one of the great and legendary figures of British history. Great he certainly was. Admiral of the Fleet throughout the years of the French Revolutionary and early Napoleonic Wars, Nelson won celebrated victories at Cape St Vincent, Abourkir Bay, Copenhagen and, most famously of all, Trafalgar. In the process he lost first an eye, then an arm and finally his life. But he was legendary too, and helped to create some of the mythical anecdotes and impressions by which subsequent generations have come to remember him. Castle's new life is based upon very through research in the large body of manuscript and printed sources and gives a fully rounded assessment of Nelson's career and character. He could be vain and given to jealousy; he was obsessive and ruthless both in professional and private life; and in later life he became fanatical to the point of imbalance in pursuit of his military and personal goals. In his belief in the divine right of kings and his own role as an instrument of God's will he was in some ways a throwback to a forgotten age of absolute monarchies and religious wars, rather than the progenitor of modern man at the dawn of 19th century. With 32 illustrations, ten of them in colour, and fully documented endnotes, the production of this book does service to its academic and literary quality. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Terry Coleman, as a political journalist, interviewed eight prime ministers, from Macmillan to Blair, and in 1988 was named journalist of the year. His previous books include a biographical study of Thomas Hardy and PASSAGE TO AMERICA, a history of nineteenth century emigration.

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