Order of C.S. Forester Books
C.S. Forester was the pen name of English novelist Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (1899-1966), who wrote naval adventure novels and stories. He is best known for his Horatio Hornblower series as well as his novel The African Queen, the latter of which was adapted to film by legendary director John Huston in 1951. When Forester was living in Washington DC during World War II, he met an intelligence officer named Roald Dahl, who he encouraged to write about his experiences in the Royal Air Force.
C.S. Forester became a published author in 1924 with the novels The Paid Piper and A Pawn Among Kings. His last original published work was Hornblower and the Crisis, published in 1967. Below is a list of C.S. Forester’s books in order of when they were originally released:
Publication Order of Horatio Hornblower Books
| The Happy Return / Beat to Quarters | (1937) |    |
| Ship of the Line | (1938) | |
| Flying Colours | (1938) | |
| The Commodore / Commodore Hornblower | (1945) | |
| Lord Hornblower | (1946) | |
| Mr. Midshipman Hornblower | (1950) | |
| Lieutenant Hornblower | (1952) | |
| Hornblower and the Atropos | (1953) | |
| Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies | (1957) | |
| Hornblower and the Hotspur | (1962) | |
| Hornblower During the Crisis / Hornblower and the Crisis | (1967) | |
Chronological Order of Horatio Hornblower Books
| Mr. Midshipman Hornblower | (1950) | |
| Lieutenant Hornblower | (1952) | |
| Hornblower and the Hotspur | (1962) | |
| Hornblower During the Crisis / Hornblower and the Crisis | (1967) | |
| Hornblower and the Atropos | (1953) | |
| The Happy Return / Beat to Quarters | (1937) | |
| Ship of the Line | (1938) | |
| Flying Colours | (1938) | |
| The Commodore / Commodore Hornblower | (1945) | |
| Lord Hornblower | (1946) | |
| Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies | (1957) | |
Publication Order of Horatio Hornblower Collections
| Captain Hornblower R.N. | (1965) | |
Publication Order of Horatio Hornblower Non-Fiction Books
| The Hornblower Companion | (1964) | |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| The Paid Piper | (1924) | |
| A Pawn Among Kings | (1924) | |
| Payment Deferred | (1926) | |
| The Wonderful Week | (1927) | |
| Love Lies Dreaming | (1927) | |
| The Shadow of the Hawk / The Daughter of the Hawk | (1928) | |
| Single-Handed | (1929) | |
| Brown on Resolution | (1929) | |
| Plain Murder | (1930) | |
| Two-and-twenty | (1931) | |
| Rifleman Dodd / Death to the French | (1932) | |
| The Gun | (1933) | |
| The Peacemaker | (1934) | |
| The African Queen | (1935) | |
| The Pursued | (1935) | |
| Marionettes at home | (1936) | |
| The General | (1936) | |
| The Earthly Paradise | (1940) | |
| The Captain from Connecticut | (1941) | |
| The Ship | (1943) | |
| The Sky and the Forest | (1948) | |
| Randall and the River Of Time | (1950) | |
| The Good Shepherd / Greyhound | (1955) | |
| The Barbary Pirates | (1956) | |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| African Queen | (1980) | |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| The Nightmare | (1954) | |
| Man in the Yellow Raft | (1969) | |
| Gold from Crete | (1970) | |
Publication Order of Children's Books
| Poo-Poo and the Dragons | (1968) | |
Publication Order of Plays
| U 97 | (2020) | |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Napoleon and His Court | (1924) | |
| Josephine, Napoleon's Empress | (1925) | |
| Victor Emmanuel II and the Union of Italy | (1927) | |
| Louis XIV: King of France and Navarre | (1928) | |
| Lord Nelson / Nelson | (1929) | |
| The Voyage of the Annie Marble | (1929) | |
| The Adventures of John Wetherell | (1954) | |
| The Naval War of 1812 / The Age of Fighting Sail | (1957) | |
| The Age of Fighting Sail | (1957) | |
| Hunting the Bismarck / Sink the Bismarck / The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck | (1958) | |
| Long Before Forty | (1967) | |
| Fatal Fascination: A Choice of Crime | (1968) | |
Publication Order of Anthologies
| Stories for the Dead of Night | (1957) | |
| 65 Great Tales Of Horror | (1981) | |
| Fifty Best Mysteries | (1993) | |
| High Seas: Stories of Battle and Adventure from the Age of Sail | (2002) | |
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The Hornblower book The Happy Return is published in the US under the title Beat to Quarters.
Publication order is basically useless when some one is trying to read books in story sequence
Understandable, but oftentimes the chronological order is not the correct order to read the series in. I’ll have the chronological order up for this series shortly.