C. S. Forester was born in Cairo in 1899, where his father was stationed as agovernment official. He studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, and after leaving Guy's without a degree he turned to writing as a career. On the outbreak of war he entered the Ministry of Information and later he sailed with the Royal Navy to collect material for The Ship. He made a voyage to the Bering Sea to gather material for a similar book on the United States Navy, and it was during this trip that he was stricken with arteriosclerosis, a disease which left him crippled. However, he continued to write and in the Hornblower novels created the most renowned sailor in contemporary fiction. He died in 1966.
I find Hornblower admirable, vastly entertaining -- Sir Winston Churchill I recommend Forester to every literate I know -- Ernest Hemingway