Nelson

Starred review from April 1, 2013
Picking up where Sugden’s Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758–1797 left off, this superb warts-and-all biography details the awe-inspiring ups and downs of the final eight years of British Admiral Horatio Nelson’s life. After the then-39-year-old Nelson lost an arm in the Royal Navy’s 1797 defeat at Tenerife, he returned home to convalesce with his loving wife, Frances. Quickly reappointed to command, Nelson achieved a stunning victory over the French at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Emerging as an international superhero, he was elevated to the peerage and inspired a torrent of songs, snuff boxes, jewelry, and other commemorative memorabilia. Nelson’s hunger for adoration impelled him to manipulate the press, flaunt his decorations for posterity, and enter into a notorious affair with the bewitching wife of Britain’s ambassador to Naples—but it also drove him to push ever forward militarily, even in the face of extreme opposition. After several successful campaigns, Nelson was killed in the critical victory over the French and Spanish at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, one of the greatest British naval triumphs since the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada. In addition to expertly depicting the intricacies of maritime warfare, Sugden’s meticulously researched, highly readable work will no doubt be the definitive portrait of a brilliant, fearless, inspiring warrior beset by flaws and vulnerabilities. 33 illus.

April 15, 2013
The exhaustive second volume of this definitive biography treats the admiral's supreme command of the British Navy and the bittersweet Lady Hamilton years. British biographer Sugden is a scholar's dream: He provides a gracious introductory bibliographic essay on previous works about Nelson and Hamilton, includes extensive maps of significant battles and even offers such helpful extras as a diagram of an "expansion" of Merton Place, Nelson's last home in Wimbledon. Nelson: A Dream of Glory (2004) covered Horatio's formative years: early patronage, solid marriage to Fanny and rise in ranks over the four years of wars with the French, culminating in his fame at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. This installment opens as the gravely wounded rear admiral, having lost his right arm in the disastrous defeat at Tenerife, returns to England to convalesce in Bath with his wife and aged father. Considering that his death at the Battle of Trafalgar looms in the near distance, and that the book weighs in at over 900 pages, there is a great deal to magnify over these few years. Equally epochal were the push back of Napoleonic aggression in the Mediterranean and the explosion of Nelson's passion for the spirited second wife of elderly Lord William Hamilton. Having gained heroic stature for destroying the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, Nelson then turned to repulse Napoleon's forces from the Kingdom of Naples, before lingering rather too long there among the lotus-eaters, to the detriment of his reputation and marriage. Sugden judges sexy Emma harshly in comparison to saintly Fanny, while Nelson is portrayed as a veritable cauldron of conflicting emotions (vanity, humility, honor, guilt), a man who yearned to do his duty yet craved a bit of happiness, too. Despite its length, a tremendously engaging work with few dull moments.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2013
Admiral Horatio Nelson, along with Captain James Cook, is at the forefront in the pantheon of British naval heroes. This is the second and concluding volume of Sugden's massive and meticulously researched biography. Here Sugden covers the latter part of Nelson's personal life as well as the greatest triumphs of his military career, including the battles of the Nile and, of course, Trafalgar. Sugden pays full tribute to Nelson's tactical brilliance, his leadership skills, and his passionate devotion to duty and country. Yet, if Nelson did not have feet of clay, he was a deeply flawed man who seemed incapable of achieving contentment. Perhaps due to his nonaristocratic background, he had a deep sense of insecurity, which led to chronic friction with his fellow officers. He was trapped in an unsatisfying marriage, and his intense and long affair with Lady Hamilton was prone to severe ups and downs. Sugden's prose is sometimes dense, and his employment of naval jargon may overwhelm some laymen. Still, this is an ambitious and largely successful conclusion to a biography of a historical icon that has appeal for both scholars and general readers interested in British history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2013

Having traced the early life of the hero of Trafalgar in the much-praised Nelson: A Dream of Glory (the London Sunday Times called it "a masterpiece of the biographer's art"), Sugden returns to blend accounts of Nelson's various campaigns until his death at Trafalgar with more intimate scenes of his personal life.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2013

Admiral Horatio Nelson is one of history's greatest military heroes, having saved Great Britain from Napoleon by defeating the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, at the cost of his life. He has had many biographers but none has served him so well as John Sugden (Nelson: Dream of Glory) in his two-volume study of Nelson's life. In this second volume (the first was published in 2004), Sugden covers Nelson's final eight years, resuming the story in 1797 with Nelson unemployed and on half-pay and suffering from general poor health after the loss of his right arm to grapeshot. His wife, Fanny, tended to his recuperation but eventually lost him to his mistress, Emma Hamilton, as Nelson returned to naval command in the Mediterranean. His tremendous victory at the battle of the Nile in August 1798 was followed by service in the Baltic, and then in 1805 with Nelson's death at Trafalgar. It's clear that Sugden has spent an enormous amount of time on his research into primary sources, many of them newly accessed, and presents a masterly portrait of the hero as a man--vain, emotional, irritable, lonely, embittered, and completely dedicated to serving his country. VERDICT This is biography as it is meant to be; its subject, however, will be most pleasing to those who study the naval history of Britain in the Napoleonic Wars.--David Poremba, Windermere, FL

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.