1805 and England, alone and facing the armed night of Imperial France, is threatened with invasion annihilation. For it is known Napoleon will show no mercy.But William Pitt the Younger, again the King's First Minister, though already a dying man, is determined the country shall cringe no longer before the ruthless Corsican. Henceforth, he will carry the fight to the enemy by the only means possible for a maritime nation by sea.So begins the fascinating seven month campaign, ...

A gripping biography of Admiral Nelson, Napoleonic War hero and one of Britain's greatest naval tacticians.In the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson sent the signal from his flagship HMS Victory, "England expects that every man will do his duty." His defeat of the French that day in 1805 was a decisive turning point in the Napoleonic Wars, establishing British control of the seas. His death in that heroic battle gave those words immortal signi...

"Nobody describes a naval battle better than Taylor…a flawless demonstration of the biographer’s craft." —Jan Morris, The GuardianEdward Pellew, captain of the legendary Indefatigable, was quite simply the greatest British frigate captain in the age of sail. Left fatherless at age eight, with a penniless mother and five siblings, Pellew fought his way from the very bottom of the navy to fleet command. Victories and eye-catching feats won him a pub...

Napoleonic-era accounts of life aboard Royal Navy warships: "Readers of Patrick O'Brian and C. S. Forester will enjoy this collection" ( Library Journal ).At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the British Navy was the mightiest instrument of war the world had ever known. The Royal Navy patrolled the seas from India to the Caribbean, connecting an empire with footholds in every corner of the earth. Such a massive Navy requ...

In this fascinating account of Thomas Cochrane's extraordinary life, David Cordingly (Under the Black Flag and The Billy Ruffian) unearths startling new details about the real-life "Master and Commander"-from his heroic battles against the French navy to his role in the liberation of Chile, Peru, and Brazil, and the stock exchange scandal that forced him out of England and almost ended his naval career. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, his own travels, wide readi...

The concluding chapter in the epic trilogy that chronicles the private lives dangerous times of England's greatest naval hero and his legendary mistress. 1799. Having evacuated the King and Queen of Naples ahead of Napoleon's advancing army, Nelson must now await developments in Sicily. In the meantime, he and Emma savour their passionate affair, and when Nelson travels back to Britain with the Hamiltons, he finds he is the toast of Europe. To the British elite, however, Nelson is a danger...

Who was responsible for the design of the Admiral Popov, the circular Russian battleship that wouldn't steer straight? Why did Lord Anson set out to circumnavigate the world with a crew of Chelsea pensioners? And how did the British cruiser HMS Trinidad manage to torpedo itself in the Arctic? The answers to these questions and details of numerous other entertaining and unbelievable historical events are revealed in this absorbing survey of naval incompetence from Roman times to the Falklands ...

Bestselling account of the life of a real Horatio HornblowerThe life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, later 10th Earl of Dundonald, was more extraordinary than that of Nelson, more far fetched than that of Hornblower or Patrick O'Brien's Jack Aubrey. Born the son of an eccentric and indigent Scottish peer, he entered the Royal Navy in 1793. In a series of outstanding and heroic actions, often against seemingly overwhelming odds, he made his name fighting Napoleon's navy a...

Two hundred years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte dominated Europe and threatened Britain with invasion. Against him stood the Royal Navy and the already legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson. On 21 October 1805, a massive naval battle off the coast of Spain decided mastery of the seas. Then, over the following days and nights, the battleships and their exhausted crews endured a gale of awesome fury. As Captain Charles Tyler wrote to his wife Margaret, 'the wind blew a perfect storm'. The authors of th...

“[Perrett] argues that Gordon, who went from a humble boy seaman to an admiral during a remarkable career, was the real inspiration for Hornblower.” —The ScotsmanEver since C.S. Forester’s fictional hero Horatio Hornblower began to delight and enthrall readers, there has been speculation as to whether his adventures were based on the career of a real naval officer. Several names were suggested; the general conclusion was that Hornblower was a composite cha...

The true story of how Britain's maritime power helped gain this country unparalleled dominance of the world's economy, Admirals celebrates the rare talents of the men who shaped the most successful fighting force in world history. Told through the lives and battles of eleven of our most remarkable admirals - men such as James II and Robert Blake - Andrew Lambert's book stretches from the Spanish Armada to the Second World War, culminating with the spirit which led Andrew Browne Cu...

The thrilling story of Britain's death-struggle with Revolutionary France, wherein Napoleon is checkmated by Nelson's brilliant naval exploits.In February 1793 France declared war on Britain, and for the next twenty-two years the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars raged. This was to be the longest, cruelest war ever fought at sea, comparable in scale only to the Second World War. New naval tactics were brought to bear, along with such unheard-of weapons as rockets, torpedoes, and su...