Description
THE THIRD HORATIO HORNBLOWER NOVEL, WARMLY INSCRIBED BY C.S. FORESTER TO HIS PUBLISHER
FORESTER, C.S. Flying Colours. London: Michael Joseph, (1938). Small octavo, original red cloth gilt, original dust jacket, original advertising band.
First separate edition of the third book in the epic Horatio Hornblower series, important presentation/association copy warmly inscribed by the author: “To Michael Joseph who thought of ‘Flying Colours’ all by himself. From C.S. Forester.” A most important copy inscribed to the publisher who clearly had a hand in the book itself. The best possible presentation copy.
“I recommend Forester to everyone literate I know,” Hemingway once said. C.S. Forester developed the idea of the the heroic naval officer Horatio Hornblower after a brief sojourn in Hollywood as a screenwriter under producer Arthur Hornblow. Returning to his native England, Forester traveled by ship down the coast of South America and began writing his adventurous epic of the Napoleonic Era, with characters hewn from British naval chronicles and named after his associates at Paramount Studios. Initially characterized as non-fiction by Times Literary Supplement for its strong historical basis, the series would eventually swell to 11 books, revitalizing the genre of naval adventure fiction. Flying Colours, the third novel in the Hornblower series, completes the story told in the first trilogy of Hornblower novels, as the naval hero is taken prisoner by, and then escapes from, Napoleonic France. One day prior to the publication of this first separate edition of Flying Colours, the title was published in an omnibus edition with A Ship of the Line. The separate edition is the most desirable to collect, however, being uniform in design with the two preceding titles in the series, as well as being more attractive. Wilden 28a. Smiley 27.
Original cloth fresh and fine. Original dust jacket bright and unfaded, with only slightest soiling. A fine inscribed copy with particularly scarce original advertising band.
