Admiral Horatio Nelson captures our imaginations like few other military figures. A mixture of tactical originality, raw courage, cruelty, and romantic passion, Nelson in action was daring and direct, a paramount naval genius and a natural born predator. Now, in The Nelson Touch, novelist Terry Coleman provides a superb portrait of Britain's most revered naval figure. Here is a vivid account of Nelson's life, from his childhood and early career at sea--where a high-placed uncle helped speed his advancement to post captain--to gripping accounts of his greatest sea battles. Readers will witness the Battle of the Nile, where Nelson crushed a French squadron of thirteen ships of the line, and the Battle of Trafalgar, where he died at the moment of his greatest triumph. What emerges is a man of strength of mind amounting to genius, frequently generous, always fascinated with women, often uneasy with his superior officers, and absolutely fearless. Nelson was a ruthless commander, whose instinct was not just to defeat the enemy but to annihilate him. Sure to appeal to readers of Patrick O'Brian and other seafaring fiction, as well as all military history and naval history buffs, this is a superbly written biography that gives readers the texture and feel of this magnificent life.

The starting point of Roger Knight's magnificent new biography is to explain how Nelson achieved such extraordinary success. Knight places him firmly in the context of the Royal Navy at the time. He analyses Nelson's more obvious qualities, his leadership strengths and his coolness and certainty in battle, and also explores his strategic grasp, the condition of his ships, the skill of his seamen and his relationships with the officers around him - including those who could hardly be called friendly. This biography takes a cool look at Nelson's status as a hero and demolishes many of the myths that were so carefully established by the early authors, and repeated by their modern successors. Nelson was a shrewd political operator who charmed and impressed political leaders and whose advancement was helped by the relatively weak generation of admirals above him. He was a difficult subordinate, only happy when completely in command, and capable of great ruthlessness. He was flawed, but brilliant - and not to be crossed.

This biography of Horatio Nelson juxtaposes details of his daily life, loves, friendships and opinions with the great events which make him one of the most memorable figures in British history. This is the story of the man who saved Britain from invasion and gave it maritime supremacy. The book was runner-up for the Whitbread Biography Award. N.A.M. Rodqer, The Times Literary Supplement "Tom Pocock presents a complete and completely believable Nelson... It is unlikely that another could have handled Nelson with the confidence and fluency, the combination of detachment and intimacy/which make this book so attractive and distinguished." Andrew Wheatcroft, Evening Standard "Tom Pocock understands the Admiral. He is not frightened to say what Nelson thought, or felt. In consequence he has written a remarkably fine biography.... In Pocock's hands, Nelson re-emerges as a whole character. At last we can see why people loved him." J.W.M. Thompson, The Literary Review "A moving and absorbing story, here told with distinction." Ronald Blythe, Country Life "So here we find the real man....a great read."

After two centuries of biographies and analyses, Admiral Lord Nelson speaks for himself in this collection of excerpts from his private letters and dispatches. Through Nelson's own words readers come to fully appreciate the admiral's insights and opinions. With chapters devoted to such subjects as duty, combat, politics, sea power, life and death, and Nelson's views of himself and his wife, Frances Nisbet, and mistress, Lady Hamilton, the book offers an array of memorable quotations. Each is placed in context to give contemporary dimension to the words. Engravings depicting events in Nelson's life accompany the text.

'Fascinating . . . Shot through with fresh insights . . . No previous biography has attempted anything so comprehensive.' ObserverNelson is a thrilling new appraisal of Horatio Nelson, the greatest practitioner of naval command the world has ever seen. It explores the professional, personal, intellectual and practical origins of one man's genius, to understand how the greatest warrior that Britain has ever produced transformed the art of conflict, and enabled his country to survive the challenge of total war and international isolation. In Nelson, Andrew Lambert - described by David Cannadine as 'the outstanding British naval historian of his generation' - is able to offer new insights into the individual quality which led Byron rightly to celebrate Nelson's genius as 'Britannia's God of War'. He demonstrates how Admiral Nelson elevated the business of naval warfare to the level of the sublime. Nelson's unique gift was to take that which other commanders found complex, and reduce it to simplicity. Where his predecessors and opponents saw a particular battle as an end in itself, Nelson was always a step ahead - even in the midst of terrifying, close-quarters action, with officers and men struck down all around him. 'Excellent . . . Worthy of the stirring events [it celebrates].' Independent

The most famous admiral in history, Horatio Nelson's string of naval victories helped secure Britain's place as the world's dominant maritime power, a position she held for more than a century after Nelson's death. A young officer during the American Revolution, Nelson rose to prominence during Britain's war with Revolutionary France, becoming a hero at the battle of Cape St. Vincent. He went on to win massive victories at the Nile and Copenhagen, before leading the British to their historic victory at Trafalgar in 1805. But, in that moment of his greatest glory, Nelson was struck down by a French sharpshooter. Today Nelson is revered as an almost mythical figure – a naval genius and a national hero. He was also a deeply flawed individual whose vanity, ego and private life all threatened to overshadow his immense abilities. This book reveals the real Nelson.

This book is the first presentation of the life of Horatio Nelson to be narrated in the first person, a recounting of his life in his own words. It begins with Nelson as a young 21-year-old captain in the Caribbean and goes to his death at the Battle of Trafalgar. Along the way his experiences in carrying out the vision of his duty in the Caribbean, Corsica, Tenerife, the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar cost him his eye, his right arm, and ultimately his life, all because he was blessed and cursed with a nature that was blind to the spectre of failure and deaf to anything other than the call of duty, the clamour of battle, and victory. He was also a mortal man whose attraction to women brought pleasure, frustration, infatuation, and ultimately lifelong satisfaction. This is his story as he would tell it.