C S Forester English Novelist Of Flying Colours And Ship Of The Line

Cecil Louis Troughton Smiths pen name was Cecil Scott Forester, abbreviated as C S Forester and was born on 27th August 1899 in Cairo. He was an English novelist who gained popularity by writing adventurous stories based on military themes. His most prominent works were The African Queen in 1935 and 11-book Horatio Hornblower series which was about naval warfare prevalent in the Napoleonic era. He won the 1938 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novels Flying colors and A Ship of the Line.

C S Forester did his education from Alleyns School and then got admitted in Dulwich College and later in Guys Hospital which is now a part of Kings College London. In the year 1926, he got married to Kathleen Belcher and had two sons, but unfortunately they got divorced in 1945. His eldest son named John who is a well known cycling activist, has written a biography on his life. Forester went to United States during World War II and wrote propaganda for inspiring the country to join Allies and later moved to Berkeley in California. During his stay in Washington D.C he met Ronald Dahl, a British intelligence officer whose R.A.F. experiences inspired him to write about them.

C S Forester has written many interesting novels like The General in 1936, The Gun which was filmed in the year 1957 under the name The Pride and the Passion, and Death to the French which was published as Rifleman Dodd in the United States and also seafaring tales without involving Hornblower, like Brown on Resolution in 1929, then in 1943 The Ship as well as Hunting the Bismarck whose screen play became the basis of the film Sink the Bismark!, released in 1960. His most notable work which was filmed was The African Queen released in 1951 and was directed by John Huston.

C S Forester secretly married Dorothy Foster in the year 1947. Later in his life, he suffered a lot from the disease called arteriosclerosis. He has written many volumes of short stories based on World War II such as The Nightmare in 1954 which was based on the events happening in Nazi Germany. Tales from the book The Man in the Yellow Raft of 1969 was based on the career of the saboteur USS Boon where as stories in Gold from Crete of 1971 was based on the saboteur HMS Apache.

C S Forester not only wrote novels based on seafaring life, but has also written crime novels like Payment Deferred published in the year 1926 and Plain Murder in 1930. He has also published two books specially meant for children. One of them was Poo-Poo and the Dragons published in 1943 containing series of stories which was narrated to his younger son, George who was suffering from mild food allergies to inspire him so that he completes his meals. While the other book was The Barbary Pirates which was about the 19th century pirates published in 1953. C S Forester