About book Nelson: A Dream Of Glory, 1758-1797 (2005)
In reviewing this biography, I'm not going to tell you anything about the life of Horatio Nelson you can't easily find on Wikipedia. Why? Because most, if not all, of Wikipedia's Nelson entry is based on the content of Sugden's two books. In essence, Sugden is to Horatio Nelson's life story what Richard Rhodes is to the rise of the nuclear age.Is Nelson's life worth such exhaustive, definitive treatment? I'd have to say no. His decisive victory over the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar was his most impactful success, an epic naval triumph achieved in his late 60s that falls outside the scope of this first volume. Here, Sugden captures all the known, respectably verifiable, blow-by-blow details of Nelson's first 39 years: from birth to low-rent, single-connection gentry (his great-grandmother was a Walpole who begot the first Earl of Orford), to apprenticeship to the Royal Navy at 12, through to his reckless success at Cape St. Vincent, which is immediately followed by the equally devastating (and reckless) defeat at Tenerife that cost him his right arm.Nelson is employed all over the British Empire: learning on the job in India, then in the Americas (mostly the Caribbean) during the Revolutionary War, a brief stint in Cathay in the 1880s, and then in and around the Mediterranean over the course of the French Revolution and the resulting Napoleonic wars. Throughout, Sugden portrays him as a diligent letter-writer, nascent cheerleader and self-promoter, and competent seaman -- all in all, a charismatic, likeable go-getter. Martially-speaking, Nelson is a man undaunted by chaos, a gloryhound who would rather be at the van of the mortar than a moribund ancillary or prize-catcher. He's thus the beneficiary of Brittania's outright naval supremacy and the victim of her lackluster land-based capability. The former rewards his heroics off the coast of Portugal, the other nearly gets him killed at Nicaragua, Corsica, and the Canary Islands.As you might expect, Sugden's best bits are those which immerse the reader in 18th century life and/or military action. The problem here is that life in the 18th century was largely tedious, consisting mostly of hanging around the house, farm, or engaged in routine, quotidian toil. To be sure, wars continental and colonial were to be had aplenty, but one man can't be everywhere -- let alone the thick of the fight -- and young Nelson sees far more inaction than action. I have to assume that all those previous biographers who glossed over Nelson's early years had good reason to do so. Still, Sugden's purpose is the full Nelson portrait, and in that he succeeds mightily. His descriptions of events and settings are so vivid, they catch you squinting at whitewashed Jamaican plaster and rolling in your briny, canvas hammock. A typical passage (p. 161): The jungle closed in on lofty banks, looking black and threatening beneath huge trees that shot up to reach the light and wove their crowns into an unbroken canopy… Large butterflies, moths and dragonflies flitted in the still moist air, and iridescent hummingbirds hovered busily before brilliant flowers. But for Nelson and his men there were rapids, falls, currents and countercurrents to absorb their attention, and the extremes between the exhausting daytime heat on the river and the falling temperatures that enveloped the makeshift camps at night to endure. I'll spare you the grisly details of an amputation at sea; they can be found on page 770. The historian is pulling his literary freight; you can't blame the author if his subject is so often devoid of activity. It is primarily for this reason that I’m now reading Sugden’s follow-up. In spinning Nelson’s extramarital affair with and child by the wife of the British Envoy to Naples contemporaneous with his stride into history over the hulls of Napoleon’s navy, Sugden should finally get to offer up a chronicle worthy of the chronicler.UPDATE: My review of Sword of Albion (Sugden's biographical "sequel") is here.Also, if you ever get a chance to watch Ioann Gruffudd in AMC's Horatio Hornblower series, by all means do so. We watched the first 100 minute episode (The Duel) last night, and it's the perfect companion to these biographies. Everything about 18th century naval life and tactics is depicted there.
Without a doubt, this will be the definitive biography of Nelson (assuming the author comes out with Vol. 2) It was 400 pages more than I wanted to read about the pre-Trafalgar Nelson, so I knew I wouldn't finish it. Still, the parts I read and skimmed were brilliant and lively. I learned things about Britain and the period on every page. It appeared to be wonderfully balanced and gave us Lord Nelson with some flaws. If the author has any bias its against the fascinating Emma Hamilton. He seems to downplay her in favor of letting us know that Nelson's wife Fanny was devoted and not the "shrew" some biographers have made her to be. If he does come out with Vol.2, I probably will read the whole thing.
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This is biography as it should be written. John Sugden has found new and hitherto unknown sources to give us a fresh look at this most famous of (and written about) admirals. Nelson was a man of many parts, brave and patriotic, yet also a shameless self-promoter and easily flattered. His sailors and his officers (usually) loved him, yet he also betrayed and abandoned his wife and his mistress. It would, however, be a mistake to judge Nelson according to 20th century standards, and Sugden places him firmly in the 18th, so that we can better understand the man, his time and ,most importantly, his accomplishments in the field of naval warfare. This volume covers Nelson's early life and his career until the loss of his arm at Tenerife. Little did anyone know that his best and most glorious days were still ahead of him! We can only hope the 2nd volume is published soon. An excellent book indeed.
—Jonathan
