The Good Shepherd is a 1955 nautical and war novel by C. S. Forester. First published in the U.S., it illustrates the difficulties of the Battle of the Atlantic: the struggle against the sea, the enemy, and the exhaustion brought on by constant vigilance. It is a riveting classic of WWII and naval warfare from one of the 20th century's masters of sea stories.

A high and glittering excitement...[Forester] has no master and few peers. -The New York Times

Nothing more exciting has been launched since Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. -The Guardian

C. S. Forester is the best living writer about the sea. -Time

Action, tension, tingling suspense...The greatest adventure story to come out of World War II. -Life Magazine

In 1941, Hitler's deadly Bismarck, the fastest battleship afloat, broke out into the Atlantic. Its mission: to cut the lifeline of British shipping and win the war with one mighty blow. How the Royal Navy tried to meet this threat and its desperate attempt to bring the giant Bismarck to bay is the story C. S. Forester tells with mounting excitement and suspense!

This is the true story of Hitler's mightiest battleship, how it was hunted, fought, and destroyed in the crucial battle for the Atlantic...

The final, unfinished volume in C. S. Forester's beloved Hornblower saga sees the indomitable naval hero engage in espionage to thwart Napoleon's forces ahead of the Battle of Trafalgar.

Although unfinished at the time of C. S. Forester's death, Hornblower During the Crisis delivers a full measure of action at sea, the hallmark of this incomparably exciting series of historical adventures.
On the threshold of securing his first post as captain, Hornblower finds himself forced by the exigencies of war to fight alongside a man whom he has unintentionally helped to court-martial. And for the first time Hornblower assents to engaging in espionage in his efforts to bring victory and glory to England in the Napoleonic Wars.
This extant fragment of Forester's final Hornblower novel is followed by the author's notes regarding the novel's conclusion. Also included in this volume are two stories -- Hornblower's Temptation and The Last Encounter -- that depict the great sea dog Hornblower in his youth and old age, respectively.

Horatio Hornblower, only seventeen years old, gets his sea legs in this absolutely compelling (San Francisco Chronicle) first installment of C. S. Forester's classic naval adventure series.

The year is 1793, the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, and Horatio Hornblower, a seventeen-year-old boy unschooled in seafaring and the ways of seamen, is ordered to board a French merchant ship and take command of crew and cargo for the glory of England. Though not an unqualified success, this first naval adventure teaches the young midshipman enough to launch him on a series of increasingly glorious exploits. This novel -- in which young Horatio gets his sea legs, proves his mettle, and shows the makings of the legend he will become -- is the first of the eleven swashbuckling Hornblower tales that are today regarded as classic adventure stories of the sea.
I recommend Forester to every literate I know. --Ernest Hemingway

Hornblower's reconnaissance mission quickly turns to warfare in this installment of the beloved series of naval adventures by C. S. Forester, a master of the genre (New York Times).

April 1803. The Peace of Amiens is breaking down. Napoleon is building ships and amassing an army just across the Channel. Horatio Hornblower -- who, at age twenty-seven, has already distinguished himself as one of the most daring and resourceful officers in the Royal Navy -- commands the three-masted Hotspur on a dangerous reconnaissance mission that evolves, as war breaks out, into a series of spectacular confrontations.
All the while, the introspective young commander struggles to understand his new bride and mother-in-law, his officers and crew, and his own accursed unhappy temperament -- matters that trouble him more, perhaps, than any of Bonaparte's cannonballs.

Called as gripping and realistic a sea tale as you are likely to run across by the New York Times, C. S. Forester's Beat to Quarters finds Hornblower faced with a near-impossible mission off the coast of Nicaragua.
June 1808, somewhere west of Nicaragua -- a site suitable for spectacular sea battles. The Admiralty has ordered Captain Horatio Hornblower, now in command of the thirty-six-gun HMS Lydia, to form an alliance against the Spanish colonial government with an insane Spanish landowner; to find a water route across the Central American isthmus; and to take, sink, burn or destroy the fifty-gun Spanish ship of the line Natividad or face court-martial. A daunting enough set of orders -- even if the happily married captain were not woefully distracted by the passenger he is obliged to take on in Panama: Lady Barbara Wellesley.

Hornblower confronts pirates, revolutionaries, and a blistering hurricane in this excellent installment (The Atlantic) in C. S. Forester's beloved saga of naval adventures.

In the chaotic aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the legendary Rear Admiral Lord Hornblower struggles to impose order. Serving as commander-in-chief of His Majesty's ships and vessels in the West Indies, Hornblower confronts a formidable array of hostile forces. The war is over, but peaceful it is not.

A rattling good story. --New York Times

Hornblower gets his first independent command in this installment of C. S. Forester's beloved series, the most popular modern saga of the days when ships were wood and men were iron (New York Times Book Review).

In this gripping tale of turmoil and triumph on the high seas, Horatio Hornblower emerges from his apprenticeship as midshipman to face new responsibilities thrust upon him by the fortunes of war between Napoleon and Spain. Enduring near-mutiny, bloody hand-to-hand combat with Spanish seamen, deck-splintering sea battles, and the violence and horror of life on the fighting ships of the Napoleonic Wars, the young lieutenant distinguishes himself in his first independent command. He also faces an adventure unique in his experience: Maria.

Hornblower leads his first ship of the line into enemy waters in this installment of C. S. Forester's beloved adventure series, called exciting, realistic, packed with grand naval action by the New Yorker.

May 1810, seventeen years deep into the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Horatio Hornblower is newly in command of his first ship of the line, the seventy-four-gun HMS Sutherland, which he deems the ugliest and least desirable two-decker in the Navy List. Moreover, she is 250 men short of a full crew, so Hornblower must enlist and train poachers, bigamists, sheepstealers, and other landlubbers.
By the time the Sutherland reaches the blockaded Catalonian coast of Spain, the crew is capable of staging five astonishing solo raids against the French. But the grisly prospect of defeat and capture looms for both captain and crew as the Sutherland single-handedly takes on four French ships.
A fine sea tale, to be ranked with the best of its kind. --New York Times

Cut off from his regiment by enemy forces pursuing his British comrades in retreat, Rifleman Matthew Dodd commits himself to fighting his way back to friendly lines. Dodd's simple, unyielding devotion to his duties as a soldier exemplifies core values - honor, courage and commitment - which all Marines are expected to demonstrate. He never thinks in terms of surrender. He doesn't just escape and evade - he continues to perform as a rifleman, killing enemy soldiers. In one of the opening chapters, Dodd is discovered by a French soldier as he is making his way back to his company. He flees in the opposite direction and finds himself scaling a steep hill. The French don't wish to follow him any farther. Instead of escaping from the impending danger, Dodd single-handedly takes on a cluster of soldiers at the foot of the hill and beats them. When he finally returns to his unit, no one knows of the deeds he has done, and his simple reward is a hot meal and the company of his mates.

Hornblower finds himself fighting Napoleonic forces in Russia in this extremely entertaining (Christian Science Monitor) chapter in C. S. Forester's beloved naval adventure series.
The year is 1812. Hornblower has been ordered to do everything possible, diplomatically and militarily, to protect the Baltic trade and to stop the spread of Napoleon's empire into Sweden and Russia. Though he has set sail a hero, one misstep may ruin his chances of every becoming an admiral.
Hornblower must find his way through a maze of perils -- hostile armies, seductive Russian royalty, ice-bound waterways, assassins in the imperial palace -- before he can return home to his beloved new wife and son, as his instructions are to sacrifice every man and ship under his command rather than surrender ground to Napoleon.
Hornblower is Hamlet in command of a battleship. --New York Times

Hornblower leads a ship into the Mediterranean in this intense and exciting installment (New York Times) of C. S. Forester's beloved naval adventure saga.

In the wake of a humbling incident aboard a canal boat in the Cotswolds, young Captain Horatio Hornblower arrives in London to take command of the Atropos, a 22-gun sloop barely large enough to require a captain. Her first assignment under Hornblower's command is as flagship for the funeral procession of Lord Nelson.
Soon Atropos is part of the Mediterranean Fleet's harassment of Napoleon, recovering treasure that lies deep in Turkish waters and boldly challenging a Spanish frigate several times her size. At the center of each adventure is Hornblower, Forester's most inspired creation, whose blend of cautious preparation and spirited execution dazzles friend and foe alike.
I find Hornblower admirable, vastly entertaining. --Winston Churchill

Hornblower is captured by the French and faces execution in a Paris prison in this most satisfying chapter (Times Literary Supplement) in C. S. Forester's beloved naval adventure series.

Forced to surrender his ship, the Sutherland, after a long and bloody battle, Captain Horatio Hornblower now bides his time as a prisoner in a French fortress. Within days he and his first lieutenant, Bush, who was crippled in the last fight, are to be taken to Paris to be tried on trumped-up charges of violating the laws of war, and most probably executed as part of Napoleon's attempt to rally the war-weary empire behind him.
Even if Hornblower escapes this fate and somehow finds his way back to England, he will face court-martial for his surrender of a British ship. As fears for his life and his reputation compete in his mind with worries about his pregnant wife and his possibly widowed lover, the indomitable captain impatiently awaits the chance to make his next move.

C.S. Forester, creator of the beloved Horatio Hornblower series, takes readers on an exciting adventure to the shores of Tripoli in North Africa. That's where, more than 200 years ago, the United States was threatened by pirates who snatched American merchant ships and imprisoned sailors - and the country's young, untested navy took on the task of fighting the pirates in their home waters.

This true tale features thrilling ocean battles, hand-to-hand combat, and the first landing on foreign soil by the US Marines, and it's as fresh and relevant today as when it was first published.

Now a major motion picture Greyhound on AppleTV+, a WWII naval thriller of high and glittering excitement (New York Times) from the author of the legendary Hornblower series

The mission of Commander George Krause of the United States Navy is to protect a convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships making their way across the icy North Atlantic from America to England. There, they will deliver desperately needed supplies, but only if they can make it through the wolfpack of German submarines that awaits and outnumbers them in the perilous seas. For forty eight hours, Krause will play a desperate cat and mouse game against the submarines, combating exhaustion, hunger, and thirst to protect fifty million dollars' worth of cargo and the lives of three thousand men. Acclaimed as one of the best novels of the year upon publication in 1955, The Good Shepherd is a riveting classic of WWII and naval warfare from one of the 20th century's masters of sea stories.

Hornblower is tasked with a dangerous rescue mission in this enthralling chapter (New York Times) in C. S. Forester's beloved naval adventure series.

Weary of the war that he has waged nearly his entire life, Hornblower finds himself assigned an especially dangerous and dubious new task: to rescue a man he knows to be a tyrant from the mutiny of his crew in the Bay of the Seine. This risky adventure, coinciding with reports that the tide of war may be turning -- as Wellington has swept over the Pyrenees and the Russians have reached the Rhine -- propels Hornblower toward the heart of the French Empire, toward a fateful reunion with old friends, and toward the harrowing but glorious conclusion of his own battle with Napoleon.

For all his young life Albert Brown had known that he was to join the Navy, and the beginning of the First World War finds him a Leading Seaman. Alone on the barren island of Resolution in the South Pacific, he fights against the might of a German battleship. This is the first of C.S.Forester's novels about the sea.

The book John Kelly reads every time he gets a promotion to remind him of 'the perils of hubris, the pitfalls of patriotism and duty unaccompanied by critical thinking'

The most vivid, moving - and devastating - word-portrait of a World War One British commander ever written, here re-introduced by Max Hastings.

C.S. Forester's 1936 masterpiece follows Lt General Herbert Curzon, who fumbled a fortuitous early step on the path to glory in the Boer War. 1914 finds him an honourable, decent, brave and wholly unimaginative colonel. Survival through the early slaughters in which so many fellow-officers perished then brings him rapid promotion. By 1916, he is a general in command of 100,000 British soldiers, whom he leads through the horrors of the Somme and Passchendaele, a position for which he is entirely unsuited and intellectually unprepared.

Wonderfully human with Forester's droll relish for human folly on full display, this is the story of a man of his time who is anything but wicked, yet presides over appalling sacrifice and tragedy. In his awkwardness and his marriage to a Duke's unlovely, unhappy daughter, Curzon embodies Forester's full powers as a storyteller. His half-hero is patriotic, diligent, even courageous, driven by his sense of duty and refusal to yield to difficulties. But also powerfully damned is the same spirit which caused a hundred real-life British generals to serve as high priests at the bloodiest human sacrifice in the nation's history. A masterful and insightful study about the perils of hubris and unquestioning duty in leadership, The General is a fable for our times.

First published in 1935, C.S. Forester's classic romantic adventure is a tale of opposites attracted. Allnut and Rose, a disreputable Cockney and an English spinster missionary, wend their way down a river in Central Africa in a rickety, asthmatic steam launch, and are gradually joined together in a mission of retaliation against the Germans. Fighting time, heat, malaria and bullets, the two have a dramatic rapprochement before the explosive ending of the book. This tale of unlikely love is thrilling and funny and ultimately satisfying.

The Good Shepherd is a historical fiction novel written by C. S. Forester. It is set during World War II and follows the story of Commander George Krause, an experienced naval officer who is given the task of leading a convoy of 37 Allied ships across the treacherous North Atlantic, which is infested with German U-boats. Krause is known for his ability to protect his ships and his crew, but he is also burdened by his own doubts and fears.As the convoy moves deeper into enemy territory, Krause faces numerous challenges, including mechanical failures, bad weather, and attacks by U-boats. He must also deal with the conflicting personalities of his crew, some of whom are inexperienced and others who are battle-hardened.Throughout the novel, Forester provides a detailed and accurate portrayal of life aboard a naval vessel during wartime. He also explores the psychological toll that war takes on individuals, particularly those in leadership positions. The Good Shepherd is a gripping and suspenseful novel that offers a unique perspective on the challenges faced by Allied forces during World War II.This is a new release of the original 1955 edition.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.