Nelson: Love and Fame - Softcover

Vincent, Edgar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300102607 ISBN 13: 9780300102604

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Legendary for exploits in war and love, the perennially fascinating Horatio Nelson comes into clear view in this captivating new biography

Nelson’s naval glory, public fame, charismatic leadership, scandalous romance, and untimely death as he led the British to victory at the Battle of Trafalgar have ensured his enduring position as England’s favorite hero. This engaging, full-length biography of Nelson (1758–1805) presents a gripping account of his career and climb to fame interwoven with the fascinating details of his personal and emotional life.

A man of contradictions, Nelson emerges in this biography as a ruthless and aggressive leader; an ambitious attention-seeker capable of childish behavior; but a figure admired for his courage, kindness, and leadership skills. Edgar Vincent offers a number of new interpretations of aspects of Nelson’s life, illuminates the motives and attitudes of key figures who surrounded him, and provides an account of his early infatuations, his courtship of his wife Fanny, and his passion for his celebrated mistress Lady Hamilton. Captured on these pages in all his vigor and complexity, Nelson is as charismatic a figure today as he was two hundred years ago.

About this title

About the Author:

Since his retirement as a senior manager from ICI, Edgar Vincent has been researching and writing about Horatio Nelson. He first became interested in Nelson during his own service in the British Royal Navy four decades ago.

From Publishers Weekly:

The approaching bicentennial of the Battle of Trafalgar has inspired a number of books on the Royal Navy and its great admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805). Retired business executive Vincent follows a long and successful tradition of British writers who are neither academicians nor professionals with this comprehensive biography. Making extensive use of archival and published sources, Vincent provides a perceptive, empathetic analysis of a man who throughout his life focused talent and energy on the pursuit of ambition and self-presentation. Vincent's Nelson did not just seek love and fame; he equated them. At the age of 18 he consciously decided to be a hero, and his strong point remained self-confidence. Nelson increasingly identified his personal interests with the public welfare. He was prone to histrionics and inordinately fond of the first person singular. Yet at the same time he incorporated, to a degree unusual for military officers at any period, the virtues of communication, negotiation and collaboration. Vincent makes the telling point that, far from being the rule-breaking innovator of many accounts, Nelson was an organization man and a skilled player of navy politics, able to mobilize support for even his high-risk operations. He cultivated a charismatic personality to win the hearts and minds of his fellow officers, eventually succeeding in welding a group of standoffish, individualistic captains into a "band of brothers." Initially unsuccessful with women, Nelson was fortunate in his eventual relationship with Emma Hamilton. Far from being the embarrassing encumbrance of some saltier biographies, she emerges here as meeting Nelson's need for unconditional acceptance in a way that freed his formidable powers to concentrate fully on the professional achievements that earned him immortality-ironically, at the expense of his loved ones' welfare and well-being. Vincent's Nelson, for good and ill, would have made the same choice consciously, without hesitation.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0300102607
• ISBN 13: 9780300102604
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 688