Nelson: the Man and the Legend Book

Horatio Nelson never sailed in a ship named "HMS Audacious", but Terry Coleman's sympathetic and searching biography of England's most famous sea-warrior: Nelson: The Man and Legend suggests it would have been an entirely appropriate command. In an age when a fine line existed between fighting for national honour and fighting for plunder, Nelson was pluckier and luckier than most of his naval contemporaries. Helped by family connections, a talent for self-publicity and a stern devotion to the law of the land (and sea), he quickly rose through the Admiralty list during the tail-end of the American war, before coming to personify the British pursuit of Napoleon in the seas surrounding Europe. Coleman is excellent on the big battles--Tenerife, the Nile, Copenhagen and, of course, Trafalgar. He also sifts the evidence for and against Nelson in the various controversies that dogged his career: his pursuit of lowly commodores in the West Indies, mutineers and conspirators in his crew, republicans in Naples, and patrons and politicians at home. Coleman manages to be judicious without losing any of the colour of the story. And on the greatest controversy of all--Nelson's ménage à trois with Emma and William Hamilton--he lets the audacious facts speak for themselves. This is a very readable and enjoyable book, from which Nelson emerges a flawed hero, but a hero nonetheless, fully deserving his pedestal status amongst the pigeon-droppings of modern London.--Miles Taylor.Read More