The 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar was celebrated in October this year. The publishing and museum worlds responded with a predictable broadside of Nelsoniana, ranging from great events of state to amiably eccentric local tributes by way of TV spectaculars, museum exhibitions, academic conferences, and much else. The Queen reviewed the Fleet at Spithead, the National Maritime Museum ran a large exhibition comparing Nelson and Napoleon, Nelson’s funeral procession was recreated on a choppy Thames, and a group of enthusiastic incendiaries immolated a huge scale model of his flagship, the Victory, at a charity bonfire in Devon. A range of books were published to catch the popular enthusiasm for Britain’s most famous admiral, among them the subject of the present review, Roger Knight’s first-rate The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson.

There is no doubting Nelson’s star quality. A captain by the age of 20, he rose rapidly in a Navy that recognised talent, and he achieved a series of major victories against France and Spain that culminated in his crushing victory over their combined fleets at Trafalgar, effectively ending Napoleon’s hopes of invading Britain. Knight’s account of his life rounds out the traditional picture of a saintly leader with an incomparable ‘Nelson touch,’ explaining how and why Nelson succeeded: he combined tactical brilliance with an ability to conceive and communicate workable plans; he was a master of both the big and small pictures (one letter displayed in the NMM exhibition, written aboard the Victory shortly before the Battle of Trafalgar, suggested that the Admiralty might consider serving sailors cocoa for breakfast to improve their morale); and he was a leader rather than a driver of men, genuinely devoted to his country and cause and bearing the scars of his service. He was, in Knight’s estimation, the firs