Editing C. S. Forester (section)

==Literary career==
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[[File:Famous fantastic mysteries 194802.jpg|thumb|Forester's 1934 science fiction novel ''The Peacemaker'' was reprinted in ''[[Famous Fantastic Mysteries]]'' in 1948.]]

Forester wrote many novels, but he is best known for the 12-book [[Horatio Hornblower]] series about an officer in the Royal Navy during the [[Napoleonic Wars]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.historicnavalfiction.com/index.php/general-hnf-info/fleet-actions/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=247:the-hornblower-companion&catid=110&Itemid=205 |title=The Hornblower Companion |website=Historic Naval Fiction |access-date=2 July 2020 |archive-date=2 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200702114410/https://www.historicnavalfiction.com/index.php/general-hnf-info/fleet-actions/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=247:the-hornblower-companion&catid=110&Itemid=205 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He began the series with Hornblower a captain in the first novel, ''[[The Happy Return]]'', which was published in 1937, but demand for more stories led him to fill in Hornblower's life story, and he wrote novels detailing his rise from the rank of midshipman. The last completed novel was published in 1962. Hornblower's fictional adventures were based on real events, but Forester wrote the body of the works carefully to avoid entanglements with real world history, so that Hornblower is always off on another mission when a great naval battle occurs during the Napoleonic Wars.

Forester's other novels include ''[[The African Queen (novel)|The African Queen]]'' (1935) and ''[[The General (C. S. Forester novel)|The General]]'' (1936); two novels about the [[Peninsular War]], ''[[Death to the French]]'' (published in the United States as ''Rifleman Dodd'') and ''[[The Gun (novel)|The Gun]]'' (filmed as ''[[The Pride and the Passion]]'' in 1957); and seafaring stories that do not involve Hornblower, such as ''[[Brown on Resolution]]'' (1929), ''[[The Captain from Connecticut]]'' (1941), ''[[The Ship (novel)|The Ship]]'' (1943), and ''[[The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck|Hunting the Bismarck]]'' (1959), which was used as the basis of the screenplay for the film ''[[Sink the Bismarck!]]'' (1960). Several of his novels have been filmed, including ''[[The African Queen (film)|The African Queen]]'' (1951), directed by [[John Huston]]. Forester is also credited as story writer on several films not based on his published novels, including ''[[Commandos Strike at Dawn]]'' (1942).

Forester also wrote several volumes of short stories set during the [[Second World War]]. Those in ''The Nightmare'' (1954) were based on events in [[Nazi Germany]], ending at the [[Nuremberg trials]]. The linked stories in ''The Man in the Yellow Raft'' (1969) follow the career of the destroyer USS ''Boon'', while many of the stories in ''Gold from Crete'' (1971) follow the destroyer HMS ''Apache''. The last of the stories in ''Gold from Crete'' is ''If Hitler Had Invaded England'', which offers an imagined sequence of events starting with [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]'s attempt to implement [[Operation Sea Lion]] and culminating in the early military defeat of Nazi Germany in the summer of 1941.

His non-fiction works about seafaring include ''The Age of Fighting Sail'' (1956), an account of the sea battles between Great Britain and the United States in the [[War of 1812]].

Forester also published the crime novels ''[[Payment Deferred]]'' (1926) and ''Plain Murder'' (1930), as well as two children's books. ''Poo-Poo and the Dragons'' (1942) was created as a series of stories told to his son George to encourage him to finish his meals. George had mild food allergies and needed encouragement to eat.<ref>''Poo-Poo and the Dragons'': Preface</ref> ''The Barbary Pirates'' (1953) is a children's history of early 19th-century pirates.

Forester appeared as a contestant on the television quiz programme ''[[You Bet Your Life]]'', hosted by [[Groucho Marx]], in an episode broadcast on 1 November 1956.<ref>{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neBitTTGr78&list=PLHaioNpr_GDbvsTj_taM-jO6C1658N1PC&index=41|title=You Bet Your Life #56-06 C.&nbsp;S. Forrester, author of Horatio Hornblower (''Name'', 1 November 1956)|date=26 July 2017|via=YouTube}}</ref>

A previously unknown novel of Forester's, ''The Pursued'', was discovered in 2003 and published by [[Penguin Classics]] on 3 November 2011.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-15327043|title=Lost CS Forester book The Pursued to be published|date=16 October 2011|publisher=BBC News}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Pursued|author= C.&nbsp;S. Forester |year= 2011 |publisher= Penguin |isbn=9780141198071}}</ref>