Books: Adventure Classic

CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER—C. S. Forester—Little, Brown ($2.75).

It was bargain day this week for adventure-story readers. For the price of one big book, they could get three. Captain Horatio Hornblower is an omnibus of Cecil Scott Forester's three novels (the first two, Beat to Quarters and Ship of the Line already published) of an English naval genius in Napoleonic times. More imaginative than Mutiny on the Bounty, it is that rare book, adventure romance treated realistically, lively entertainment with sound historical background, fast narrative with subtle characterization. Captain Horatio Hornblower stacks up with the...