Horatio Hornblower is a fictional Napoleonic
Wars era Royal Navy officer who is the protagonist
of a series of novels by C. S. Forester. He
was later the subject of films, radio and
television programs.
The original Hornblower tales began with the
1937 novel The Happy Return with the appearance
of a junior Royal Navy captain on independent
duty on a secret mission to Central America,
though later stories would fill out his earlier
years, starting with an unpromising beginning
as a seasick midshipman. As the Napoleonic
Wars progress, he gains promotion steadily
as a result of his skill and daring, despite
his initial poverty and lack of influential
friends. Eventually, after surviving many
adventures in a wide variety of locales, he
rises to the pinnacle of his profession, promoted
to Admiral of the Fleet, knighted as a Knight
Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and
named the 1st Baron Hornblower.
Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying, "I recommend
Forester to everyone literate I know," and
Winston Churchill stated, "I find Hornblower
admirable."
Inspirations
There are many parallels between Hornblower
and real naval officers of the period, notably
Admiral Lord Nelson and also Sir George Cockburn,
Lord Cochrane, Jeremiah Coghlan, Sir James
Gordon, Sir William Hoste and many others.
The actions of the Royal Navy at the time,
documented in official reports, gave much
material for Hornblower's fictional adventures.
The name "Horatio" was inspired by the character
in William Shakespeare's Hamlet and chosen
also because of its association with contemporary
figures such as Nelson.
Forester's original inspiration was an old
copy of the Naval Chronicle, which described
the effective dates of the Treaty of Ghent.
Because of the time required to communicate
around the world, it was possible for two
countries to still be at war in one part of
the world after a peace was obtained months
before in another. The burdens that this placed
on captains far from home led him to a character
struggling with the stresses of a "man alone".
At the same time, Forester wrote the body
of the works carefully to avoid entanglements
with real world history, so Hornblower is
always off on another mission when a great
naval victory occurs during the Napoleonic
Wars.
Characteristics
Described as "unhappy and lonely", Hornblower
is courageous, intelligent and a skilled seaman;
but he is also burdened by his intense reserve,
introspection and self-doubt. Despite numerous
personal feats of extraordinary skill and
cunning, he belittles his achievements by
numerous rationalizations, remembering only
his fears. He consistently ignores or is unaware
of the admiration with which he is held by
his fellow sailors. He regards himself as
cowardly, dishonest, and, at times, disloyal—never
crediting his ability to persevere, think
rapidly, organize or cut to the heart of a
matter. His sense of duty, hard work, and
drive to succeed make these imagined negative
characteristics undetectable by everyone but
him, and being introspective, he obsesses
over petty failures to reinforce his poor
self-image. His introverted nature continually
isolates him from the people around him, including
his closest friend, William Bush, and his
wives never fully understand him. He is guarded
with nearly everyone, unless the matter is
the business of discharging his duty as a
King's officer, in which case he is clear
and decisive.
Hornblower possesses a hyper-developed sense
of duty, though on occasion he is able to
set it aside; for example, in Hornblower and
the Hotspur, he contrives an escape for his
personal steward, who would otherwise have
to be hanged for striking a superior officer.
He is philosophically opposed to flogging
and capital punishment, and is pained when
circumstances or the Articles of War force
him to impose such sentences.
He suffers from chronic seasickness, especially
at the start of his voyages. As a midshipman,
he was once sick at the sheltered roadstead
of Spithead. His embarrassment haunts him
throughout his career. He is tone-deaf and
finds music an incomprehensible irritant.
A voracious reader, he can discourse on both
contemporary and classical literature. His
skill at mathematics makes him both an adept
navigator and an extremely talented whist
player. He uses his ability at whist to supplement
his income during a period of inactivity in
the naval service.
Fictional biography
Youth
Hornblower is born in Kent, the son of a doctor.
He has no inherited wealth or influential
connections who can advance his career. In
The Happy Return, the first novel published,
Hornblower's age is given as 37 in July 1808,
implying a birth year of 1770 or 1771. However,
when Forester decided to write about Hornblower's
early career in the sixth novel Mr. Midshipman
Hornblower, he made his hero about five years
younger, giving his birth date as July 4,
1776. This adjustment allows Hornblower to
begin his career in wartime. He is given a
classical education, and by the time he joins
the Royal Navy at age seventeen, he is well-versed
in Greek and Latin. He is tutored in French
by a penniless French émigré and has an
aptitude for mathematics, which serves him
well as a navigator.
Early career
Hornblower's early exploits are many and varied.
Joining the Royal Navy as a midshipman, he
fends off fire ships which interrupt his first
examination for promotion to lieutenant. Still
only an acting lieutenant, he is given command
of the sloop Le Rêve, which blunders into
a Spanish fleet in the fog, resulting in Hornblower's
capture and imprisonment in Ferrol. During
his captivity, he acquires a fluent knowledge
of Spanish, which proves highly useful in
several further adventures, and is finally
confirmed as a commissioned lieutenant. His
daring rescue of sailors from a shipwreck
under extremely hazardous conditions, and
his honourable adherence to the parole he
had given, is rewarded by his Spanish captors
by his release.
As a junior lieutenant, he serves in HMS Renown
under Captain Sawyer, who suffers a breakdown
due to paranoid schizophrenia on a trip to
the Caribbean. It is on this voyage that he
begins his long friendship with William Bush,
at the time his senior officer. Returning
to England, Hornblower, promoted to acting
commander, is demobilized after the peace
of Amiens, causing him great financial distress—he
resorts to making a living as a professional
gambler, playing whist with admirals and other
senior figures for a modest income plus any
money he wins in the games.
HMS Hotspur
In 1803, he is recalled to active duty and
confirmed as commander, and is given command
of the sloop of war HMS Hotspur when hostilities
resume against Napoleon. Following his appointment
to this command, he marries Maria, the daughter
of his landlady whom he had met and courted
while living on half-pay in Portsmouth. Originally
he is written as having mixed feelings about
Maria. Maria is portrayed as a somewhat dull
woman who dotes upon the irritable Hornblower
in ways he finds distressing—she knows little
of the sea, and annoys him both with her ignorance
and her desire for social status derived from
his promotions, as well as her hero-worship
of him, which clashes with his eternally low
self-image. Despite this unfortunate beginning,
however, over the course of several books,
he warms to her, and becomes at least a good,
if not perfect, husband to her, and father
to their first two children, also named Horatio
and Maria.
After gruelling service during the blockade
of Brest aboard the Hotspur, he finally gains
the coveted promotion to Captain, by the assistance
of Commander-in-Chief William Cornwallis,
and is recalled to England. Once there, he
meets the secretary of the Admiralty and post
rank is conferred immediately when Hornblower
agrees to take part in a clandestine operation
that eventually leads to the resounding British
victory at the Battle of Trafalgar that costs
Nelson his life.
HMS Atropos
Following this exploit, Hornblower is ordered
by the Admiralty to organize Nelson's funeral
procession along the River Thames and has
to deal with the near-sinking of the barge
conveying the hero's coffin. Later, after
being given command of HMS Atropos, he is
sent on a secret mission to recover gold and
silver from a sunken British transport on
the bottom of Marmorice Bay within the Ottoman
Empire with the aid of pearl divers from Ceylon,
narrowly escaping a Turkish warship at the
end. Upon his return to a British-controlled
port, after unloading the treasure and refitting
his ship, the HMS Atropos, is given to the
King of the Two Sicilies for diplomatic reasons,
much to his disappointment. Returning to England,
he finds his two young children dying of smallpox.
Their deaths were referred to in the first
novel to be published.
HMS Lydia
Later, he makes a long, difficult voyage in
command of the frigate HMS Lydia round the
Horn to the Pacific, where his mission is
to support a madman, El Supremo, in his rebellion
against the Spanish. He captures the Natividad,
a much more powerful Spanish ship, but then
has to reluctantly cede it to El Supremo to
placate him. When he finds that the Spanish
have switched sides in the interim, he is
forced to find and sink the ship he had captured—adding
injury to insult, as he had given up a fortune
in prize money to maintain the uneasy alliance
with the megalomaniac.
Hornblower also takes on an important passenger
in a stop in Panama—Lady Barbara Wellesley,
the fictional younger sister of Arthur Wellesley—also
Hornblower's future wife, and without doubt
the love of his life. He is at first nettled
and infuriated by her forthright and outspoken
manner, her ability to easily see through
his reserve, and her refusal to be cowed or
overawed by him. Over time, however, her beauty,
strength, and intelligence win his heart,
and the two become dangerously attracted to
each other. This results in a kiss that is
interrupted by Lady Barbara's maid Hebe—when
she is sent away, the spell is broken, and
Hornblower, engaging in his typical self-loathing
and second-guessing behavior, refuses to give
in to his feelings again. Perceiving herself
to be rejected, Lady Barbara leaves the Lydia
two days later when they rendezvous with other
British ships. Hornblower fears for his career,
having offended the daughter of an earl and
sister of a marquis.
HMS Sutherland
After these exploits, he is given command
of HMS Sutherland, a seventy-four gun ship
of the line. His feelings are disturbed during
this period by the fact that his commander,
Admiral Leighton, has recently married Lady
Barbara, thereby apparently ending any hope
that she and Hornblower might act on their
feelings for one another. Hornblower is tormented
by jealousy of Leighton, compounded by the
admiral's dismissive treatment of him; this
treatment is due in fact to Leighton's rightly
suspecting his wife's attraction to the famous
captain, and feelings of inferiority towards
Hornblower, but naturally the self-doubting
captain is incapable of realizing this.
While waiting at his Mediterranean rendezvous
point for the rest of his squadron—and its
commander—to arrive, he carries out a series
of raids against the French along the south
coast of Spain. He learns that a French squadron
of four ships of the line is loose, having
slipped the blockade. He decides that his
duty requires that he fight at one-to-four
odds to prevent them from entering a well-protected
harbour. In the process, his ship is crippled
and with two-thirds of the crew incapacitated,
he surrenders to the French. As a prisoner
he witnesses the destruction of the French
ships at anchor by Leighton's squadron.
He is sent with his coxswain, Brown, and his
injured first lieutenant, Bush, to Paris for
a show trial and execution. During the journey,
Hornblower and his companions escape. After
a winter sojourn at the chateau of the Comte
de Graçay, during which he has an affair
with the nobleman's widowed daughter-in-law,
the escapees travel down the Loire river to
the coastal city of Nantes. There, he recaptures
a Royal Navy cutter, the Witch of Endor, mans
the vessel with a gang of slave labourers
and escapes to the Channel Fleet.
Hornblower faces a mandatory court-martial
for the loss of the Sutherland, but is "most
honourably acquitted." A national hero in
the eyes of the public, he is awarded a knighthood
and made a Colonel of Marines. When he arrives
home, he discovers that his first wife Maria
has died in childbirth and that his infant
son has been adopted and cared for by Lady
Barbara. As she has been widowed by the death
of Admiral Leighton, Hornblower's former commander
they are free to marry. Thereafter, he lives
as a country squire in the fictional village
of Smallbridge, Kent, largely satisfied but
longing for the sea.
Flag Officer
A return to duty comes when he is promoted
to commodore and sent with a squadron of small
craft on a mission to the Baltic Sea, where
he must be a diplomat as much as an officer.
He foils an assassination attempt on Tsar
Alexander I of Russia and is influential in
the monarch's decision to resist the French
invasion of the Russian Empire. While at the
court of the Tsar, it is implied that he is
unfaithful to Barbara, dallying with a young
Russian noblewoman. He provides invaluable
assistance in the defence of Riga, employing
his bomb-ketches against the French army,
where he meets General Carl von Clausewitz
of the Prussian Army.
He returns ill with typhus to England. Soon
after his recovery, he is given the difficult
task of dealing with mutineers off the coast
of France. After provoking the French by trickery
into attacking the mutinous ship, he rounds
up the rebels, personally shooting their ringleader
as he tries to escape. When he is approached
by a French official willing to negotiate
the surrender of a major port, he seizes the
opportunity and engineers the return of the
Bourbons to France. He is rewarded by being
created a peer as Baron Hornblower of Smallbridge
in the County of Kent. However, his satisfaction
is marred by the death of his longtime friend,
Bush.
When Napoleon returns from exile at the start
of the Hundred Days, Hornblower is staying
at the estate of the Comte de Graçay, which
he was visiting after again growing tired
of his life in Smallbridge. While there, he
renews his affair with Marie de Gracay, so
that he has now been unfaithful, with her,
to both of his wives. When the country goes
over to Napoleon en masse, Hornblower, the
Count, and his family choose to fight rather
than flee to Britain. He leads a Royalist
guerrilla force, and causes the returned Emperor's
forces much grief before his band is finally
cornered; in a desperate shootout, Marie is
slain, and a devastated Hornblower captured.
After a brusque hearing before a military
tribunal, he and the Count are both sentenced
to the firing squad the next morning by an
officer who obviously regrets the task. However,
in the morning when his cell door is opened,
he is granted a stay due to Napoleon's defeat
at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon had tried
to stir up support for a renewed national
resistance when he arrived in Paris after
Waterloo, but the temper of the legislative
chambers, and of the public generally, did
not favor his view. Lacking support, Napoleon
abdicates and after he is again sent into
exile, Hornblower is released.
After several years ashore, he is promoted
to rear admiral and appointed naval Commander-in-Chief
of the West Indies. He foils an attempt by
veterans of Napoleon's Imperial Guard to free
Napoleon from his captivity on Saint Helena,
captures a slave ship, and encounters Simón
Bolívar's army. He also discovers a plot
by Lady Barbara to engineer the escape of
a Marine bandsman sentenced to death for a
minor offence. An astonished Hornblower overlooks
her breach of the law and reassures her of
his love. Finally, while attempting to return
to England, the Hornblowers are caught in
a hurricane, and Horatio struggles desperately
to save Barbara's life from the storm. In
a moment of terror and desperation, she bares
her heart to him, revealing that she never
loved her first husband, only him. The two
survive, and this revelation does much to
heal the last self-inflicted wounds in Hornblower's
soul. He retires to Kent and eventually becomes
Admiral of the Fleet.
His final, improbable achievement occurs at
his home, when he assists a seemingly mad
man claiming to be Napoleon to travel to France.
That person turns out to be Napoleon III,
the nephew of Hornblower's great nemesis and
the future President of France. For his assistance,
Lord Hornblower is created a Chevalier of
the Legion of Honour. At the end of his long
and heroic career, he is wealthy, famous and
contented, a loving and beloved, indulgent
husband and father, and finally free of the
insecurities and self-loathing that had driven
him throughout his life.
Forester provides two different brief summaries
of Hornblower's career. The first was in the
first chapter of The Happy Return, which was
the first Hornblower novel written. The second
occurs mid-way through The Commodore, when
Czar Alexander asks him to describe his career.
The two accounts are incompatible. The first
account would have made Hornblower about five
years older than the second. The second account
is more nearly compatible with the rest of
Hornblower's career, but it omits the time
he spent as a commander in Hornblower and
the Hotspur. There are other discrepancies
as well; in one account of his defeat of a
Spanish frigate in the Mediterranean, he distinguished
himself as lieutenant and in another he is
a post-captain with less than three years
seniority. It appears that these discrepancies
arose as the series matured and accounts needed
to be modified to coincide with his age and
career.
Non-canonical biography
C. Northcote Parkinson, more famous for his
invention of Parkinson's Law, wrote a "biography"
of Hornblower, detailing his career as well
as personal information. The biography sheds
light upon what really happened to Captain
Sawyer on HMS Renown, as well as subsequent
careers of Lord Hornblower's descendants,
ending with the present Lord Hornblower's
emigration to Apartheid South Africa in the
late 1960s. According to Parkinson, Hornblower
in later life became a director of P&O, Governor
of Malta, Commander in Chief at Chatham a
Viscount, and an Admiral of the Fleet, dying
at the age of 80 on 12 January 1858.
This fictional biography of a fictional character
has confused some readers, who have taken
it as a factual work. Parkinson includes in
Horatio's family tree at least two real life
Hornblowers, though he nowhere admits to this.
They are Jonathan Hornblower senior and Jonathan
Hornblower junior, who were noted engineers
designing and working with steam engines in
mines in Cornwall in the late 18th century.
In their spare time they were active Baptist
Christians, founding a church in Chacewater
whose offshoot in Truro is very much alive
to this day.
Bibliography
The Hornblower canon by Forester consists
of eleven novels and five short stories. In
addition, The Hornblower Companion includes
maps showing where the action took place in
the ten complete novels plus Forester's notes
on how they were written.
Another short story, "The Point and the Edge,"
is included only as an outline in The Hornblower
Companion.
Omnibus publications
The first three novels written, The Happy
Return, A Ship of the Line, and Flying Colours
were collected as Captain Horatio Hornblower
by Little Brown in the US. Both a single-volume
edition and a three-volume edition were published.
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, Lieutenant Hornblower,
and Hornblower and the Atropos were compiled
in one book, variously titled Hornblower's
Early Years, Horatio Hornblower Goes to Sea,
or The Young Hornblower. Hornblower and the
Atropos was replaced by Hornblower and the
Hotspur in later UK editions of The Young
Hornblower.
Hornblower and the Atropos, The Happy Return,
and A Ship of the Line were compiled into
one omnibus edition, called Captain Hornblower.
Flying Colours, The Commodore, Lord Hornblower,
and Hornblower in the West Indies were presented
as a third omnibus edition called Admiral
Hornblower to fill out the series.
Commodore Hornblower, Lord Hornblower, and
Hornblower in the West Indies were also compiled
into one book, called The Indomitable Hornblower.
Four "Cadet Editions" were released by Little
Brown and later by Michael Joseph, each collecting
two Hornblower novels and edited for younger
readers: Hornblower Goes to Sea, from Mr.
Midshipman Hornblower and Lieutenant Hornblower;
Hornblower Takes Command, from Hornblower
and The Atropos and Beat To Quarters; Hornblower
in Captivity, from A Ship of the Line and
Flying Colours; and Hornblower's Triumph,
from Commodore Hornblower and Lord Hornblower.
The short stories The Hand of Destiny, Hornblower's
Charitable Offering, Hornblower and His Majesty
plus other Hornblower material not previously
published in book-form was collected in Hornblower
One More Time though only 350 copies were
printed.
Serialisation
The Hornblower novels were all serialised
in US periodicals and most also in UK periodicals.
Except for the first novel Beat to Quarters,
the serialisations appeared before the books.
Historical figures in the novels
Royal Navy figures
Vice-Admiral The Hon. Sir Henry Blackwood,
1st Baronet
Admiral Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence
Admiral Lord Collingwood
Admiral The Hon. Sir William Cornwallis
Admiral Lord Gambier
Rear-Admiral Lord Gardner, second in command
to Admiral Cornwallis
Captain Richard Bowen — HMS Terpsichore,
but called Captain Sir Richard Bowen, killed
at Teneriffe
Admiral Sir John Gore — HMS Medusa
Admiral Sir Richard Grindall — HMS Prince
Admiral Sir Graham Eden Hamond, 2nd Baronet
— HMS Lively, but called Hammond
Captain Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy — HMS
'Triumph
Admiral John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent
Captain Charles John Moore Mansfield — HMS
Minotaur, but called Marsfield
Admiral Sir Graham Moore — HMS Indefatigable
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Peter Parker, 1st
Baronet
Rear-Admiral Sir William Parker, 1st Baronet,
of Harburn
Captain Lord Henry Paulet — HMS Terrible
Admiral Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth
— HMS Indefatigable
Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, later Lord
de Saumarez, — HMS Temeraire
Captain Samuel Sutton — HMS Amphion
Other historical figures
Aleksandr Pavlovich Romanov, Tsar Alexander
I of Russia
Sir John Barrow — Second Secretary to the
Admiralty
Lord William Cavendish-Bentinck
Prince Karl XIV Johan of Sweden
Napoleon III of France
General Count Pierre Jacques Etienne Cambronne
Colonel Karl Philip Gottlieb von Clausewitz
Lord Conyngham
General Sir Hew Whitefoord Dalrymple
Lady Frances Dalrymple
Duke d'Angoulême
Duchess d'Angoulême,
General Hans Karl von Diebitsch
John Hookham Frere
General-Lieutenant Ivan Nikolaevich Essen
King George III of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland
George Augustus Frederick, The Prince Regent
William Marsden — Secretary to the Lords
of the Admiralty
General Count Sebastian Francisco de Miranda
General Count Louis Marie Jacques Alamaric
Narbonne-Lara
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Spencer Perceval — Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom
Richard Colley Wellesley, 2nd Earl of Mornington,
Marquis Wellesley
General Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg
Ships featured
In other media
Screen adaptations
The 1951 film Captain Horatio Hornblower starred
Gregory Peck in the title role, encompassing
the events in The Happy Return, A Ship of
the Line, and Flying Colours, with C. S. Forester
sharing writing credits. Peck and co-star
Virginia Mayo would recreate their roles on
a one-hour Lux Radio Theater program broadcast
on January 21, 1952, which is included as
an audio-only feature in the film's DVD release.
The ITV and A&E television series Hornblower
starred Ioan Gruffudd as Hornblower, and included
stories from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower up
to Hornblower and the Hotspur.
Radio adaptations
Michael Redgrave played Hornblower in a radio
series of the same name between 1952 and 1953,
later rebroadcast over Mutual in the United
States syndicated via Towers of London.
Nicholas Fry played Hornblower in the radio
series 'The Hornblower Story' in 1979/80 for
the BBC. This series covers the books, 'Mr
Midshipman Hornblower', 'Lieutenant Hornblower',
'Hornblower and the Hotspur' and 'Lord Hornblower'.
Literary appearances
In the fictional setting of The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore, Hornblower
is the equivalent of Lord Nelson, with The
Black Dossier depicting Hornblower's Column
as one of London's most popular landmarks.
A "biography", called The life and times of
Horatio Hornblower, was published in 1970
by C. Northcote Parkinson which gives various
scholarly "corrections" to the stories told
by Hornblower's creator.
In Dudley Pope's Ramage, Hornblower is mentioned
in passing as a former shipmate of the title
character, Lord Ramage, when both were midshipmen.
Sten Nadolny's novel The Discovery of Slowness
contains allusions to the Hornblower cycle.
For instance, the Lydia is written among other
vessels in a sailor's bar in Plymouth. Lieutenant
Gerard who appears in The Happy Return and
A Ship of the Line is mentioned several times.
Influence on other fiction
Napoleonic War series
The popular Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell
were inspired by C. S. Forester's Hornblower
series.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels were
likely influenced by the Hornblower tales.
Douglas Reeman's Richard Bolitho series was
inspired by Hornblower and was described in
publicity as 'the best of Hornblower's successors'.
Dudley Pope was encouraged by C. S. Forester
to create his Lord Ramage series of novels
set around the same period.
Science fiction series
Gene Roddenberry was influenced by the Hornblower
character while creating the Star Trek characters
James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. Nicholas
Meyer, director of some of the Star Trek films,
frequently cites Horatio Hornblower as one
of his primary influences.
The science fiction characters of John Grimes
and Nicholas Seafort are heavily inspired
by the Hornblower series.
David Weber's character Honor Harrington closely
parallels Hornblower and he deliberately gave
her the same initials. In one of the novels,
the character is described reading a Hornblower
novel. The first Honor novel is dedicated
to C. S. Forester.
Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry also parallels
the Hornblower series.
The fifth novel in the Jackelian series of
Stephen Hunt, Jack Cloudie, has the Hornblower
series as a major influence. The title, Jack
Cloudie, is itself derived from Jack Tar,
as is the series name.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga uses
the Hornblower series as a structural model.
David_Feintuch's Seafort Saga has a very similar
central character in Nicholas Seafort, a young
Midshipman serving on a deep space military
ship who rises through the ranks to become
Earth's savior several times over. Seafort
is recognized by those around him as a brave
and noble man, but the sacrifices he is called
to make plague him with guilt and angst.
Other references
Captain Horario Harpplayer, R.N. is a short
story parody written by the science fiction
author Harry Harrison. While Hornblower is
tone deaf, Harpplayer is completely colour
blind, with the result that he cannot recognize
a little green man as an alien from outer
space. Harpplayer reflects on the "imaginary
colors" that other people claim to see, and
refers to the alien as "Mr. Greene".
The British comedy film Carry On Jack featured
a character named Midshipman Poopdecker, played
by Bernard Cribbins, who was intended as a
parody of Hornblower.
President Jimmy Carter accidentally called
the late Senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey "Hubert
Horatio Hornblower" during his acceptance
speech after he was nominated for re-election
in 1980.
The video game Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned
Ships features a character named Horatio Hornblower
who offers his services to the player if the
right questions are asked.
In the episode "Smile Time" of the television
series Angel, one of the demon-possessed puppets
is named Ratio Hornblower. The same character
also appears in the limited comic book series
Spike: Shadow Puppets.
References
External links
Scaryfangirl - a Hornblower fan site
C. S. Forester Society, dedicated to the author
and his works
