Forester grew up as a young lad in Cairo, Egypt during its heyday with the British in 1899 to the Smith family. While his father, a government official, stayed, his mother took the children to London for schooling. In WWI he wanted to enlist but was not considered physically apt and was rejected. He tried various professions including medicine but finally gave up and threw himself into his writing. He piled up manuscripts of a variety of sensational and historical subjects but there was little interest in them. Finally his novel Payment Deferred was recognized and his career began.

He married, and began voyaging around the English channel and surrounding areas and at 38 he came out with the first Hornblower book which was an instant hit. The series became his bread and butter, although he kept writing other books as well. He had some fun dabbling in Hollywood when he helped out with The African Queen, though he did not actually follow the cast who filmed on location in Africa. There were some fun adventures then with huge wardrobe problems, and the only people not to get ill were Bogart and the Director because they didn't drink any of the water and subsisted on brandy. Katherine Hepburn's autobiography has some wonderful insights into the adaptation and filming of that book.

Before WWII, Forester was caught up in the tension of the age and began working occasionally for newspapers, reporting on Nazi activity and even trying his hand at propaganda in America. He took ill but continued researching, going out with the Navy during the war. With it's end, Forester moved to Berkeley, California for his health but began experiencing a series of heart attacks and his last few books were published posthumously after his death in 1966.

Compiled by Zimrahil