There are plenty of Nelson biographies out there, but he doesn’t make as many appearances in fiction as you might think.
Certainly one of the more ‘literary’ – and odd – is Barry Unsworth’s novel, Losing Nelson. The book rolls along on the somewhat thin premise that its narrator – a Nelson fanatic who recreates key battles with toy ships on a billiard table in his basement (!) – begins to question his adoration after the scale of Nelson’s misdemeanours in Naples hits home. The book ends (spoiler) with the character going mad and killing a child in Naples whilst trying to clear Nelson’s name.
It’s no Hornblower, put it like that.
Losing Nelson is an interesting book, but I do find it unlikely that its main character, or anybody, could claim to be a huge fan of Nelson yet not know a fair bit about the comparative handful of scandals he was involved in. It’s like a Beatles obsessive taking a decade to discover that the band took drugs, then being outraged about it.
During my research for The Lamented Hero, I’ve found that, generally, the more I’ve learnt about Nelson, the more I have liked him. I went into my research expecting to find untold horror stories. In reality, most of his skeletons are out of the closet, spotlit. It’s the great things he did that are often hidden.
Basically, I’ve done a reverse Losing Nelson, going from sceptic to admirer. But I haven’t gone so far as to play with toy ships in my basement. Yet.
Of course, Losing Nelson received rave reviews on release, mostly applauding the author for challenging the myths. There are some great moments in it. My favourite is when the narrator says that Emma Hamilton (Nelson’s lover) and Fanny Nelson (his wife) ‘each saw in the other her fears and prejudices realised’. What a line. And so accurate.
But perhaps the most interesting line does in fact come from one of the reviews, in the Guardian:
‘It may be that Nelson is too starkly heroic for modern taste.’
This was written in 1999. It captures the ensuing twenty-five years perfectly. The losing of Nelson.
Nelson The Sailor 