Central Reference Library in Hull. Later still, I spent much of the sixties passionately collecting and reading books about Nelson, collating detailed bibliographies, and scribbling primitive accounts of aspects of his story. It was in those early years that the idea of writing a major biography of Nelson was born, and it survived my first contacts with the scholars whose books I so enjoyed. Carola Oman and Oliver Warner, at that time the leading interpreters of the admiral’s career, overlooked my obvious inexperience, and encouraged me, answering tiresome enquiries and gently pointing me in the right direction.
Discouragement came later, as I imbibed, like most others, the idea that there was nothing else to be said about Nelson. Hundreds of titles had been published about him, and most followed predictable courses, repeating well-known stories and quoting familiar letters. As a university undergraduate I recoiled and turned to new ground, and my doctorate dealt with one of Nelson’s naval contemporaries rather than the man himself. However, the expeditions I made to the British Library, Public Record Office and National Maritime Museum in the seventies were an awakening. It was then that I realised the extent of the unused material that existed for a biography of Nelson. Writers were borrowing excessively from previous biographies and histories,and apocryphal stories and statements passed from book to book without any serious attempt having being made to verify them. Moreover, nearly all the biographers drew most, and most commonly all, their primary material from a few long-known printed sources, including nineteenth-century biographies and the classic collections of Nelson letters made by Nicolas, Pettigrew, Morrison and Naish.
These were excellent sources as far as they went. But the sum of all such publications left hundreds of Nelson letters unpublished. Not only that, but some periods and aspects of Nelson’s career were only thinly covered by the letters, or not at all, and there were obvious dangers in reconstructing the life of a controversial public figure from his own version of it.
And the archives were brimming with other under- or unused records, including many relevant collections of private papers, logs, musters, court-martial transcripts, legal records, and extensive files of correspondence in the archives of the Admiralty, Colonial, Foreign, War and Home Offices. It seemed to me that a new major biography was needed, one that would transcend the familiar publications, ground Nelson’s story in credible primary sources and rest upon a thorough and complete overhaul of all the relevant material. My ambition to write the book was rekindled, but for many years available opportunities and other interests drew me elsewhere. Extensive commitments in American history, focused on the Old Northwest and War of 1812 periods, prevented more than the occasional sortie into Nelsoniana. It was not until the later eighties that I began to rehabilitate my Nelson project along the lines I had devised.
The task has been larger than I anticipated and almost forbidding. At times I felt like one of the figures in Conrad’s Typhoon , being battered by successive and mountainous seas. No sooner had a hardwon mastery of one set of files been achieved than another rolled threateningly forward. Even now, after several years in the archives, I am sure there are still Nelson nuggets to be quarried. In addition to the major collections, answering many of the troubling enquiries necessitated special searches in far-flung places. It soon became clear that the work would extend to more than a single volume, and I decided to end my first in 1797, when Nelson stood on the brink of international fame and had assumed the appearance that would be remembered, with one sleeve empty and one eye sightless. Here, therefore, I have dealt in full with the part of Nelson’s life that has least interested his biographers, his early life and
Discouragement came later, as I imbibed, like most others, the idea that there was nothing else to be said about Nelson. Hundreds of titles had been published about him, and most followed predictable courses, repeating well-known stories and quoting familiar letters. As a university undergraduate I recoiled and turned to new ground, and my doctorate dealt with one of Nelson’s naval contemporaries rather than the man himself. However, the expeditions I made to the British Library, Public Record Office and National Maritime Museum in the seventies were an awakening. It was then that I realised the extent of the unused material that existed for a biography of Nelson. Writers were borrowing excessively from previous biographies and histories,and apocryphal stories and statements passed from book to book without any serious attempt having being made to verify them. Moreover, nearly all the biographers drew most, and most commonly all, their primary material from a few long-known printed sources, including nineteenth-century biographies and the classic collections of Nelson letters made by Nicolas, Pettigrew, Morrison and Naish.
These were excellent sources as far as they went. But the sum of all such publications left hundreds of Nelson letters unpublished. Not only that, but some periods and aspects of Nelson’s career were only thinly covered by the letters, or not at all, and there were obvious dangers in reconstructing the life of a controversial public figure from his own version of it.
And the archives were brimming with other under- or unused records, including many relevant collections of private papers, logs, musters, court-martial transcripts, legal records, and extensive files of correspondence in the archives of the Admiralty, Colonial, Foreign, War and Home Offices. It seemed to me that a new major biography was needed, one that would transcend the familiar publications, ground Nelson’s story in credible primary sources and rest upon a thorough and complete overhaul of all the relevant material. My ambition to write the book was rekindled, but for many years available opportunities and other interests drew me elsewhere. Extensive commitments in American history, focused on the Old Northwest and War of 1812 periods, prevented more than the occasional sortie into Nelsoniana. It was not until the later eighties that I began to rehabilitate my Nelson project along the lines I had devised.
The task has been larger than I anticipated and almost forbidding. At times I felt like one of the figures in Conrad’s Typhoon , being battered by successive and mountainous seas. No sooner had a hardwon mastery of one set of files been achieved than another rolled threateningly forward. Even now, after several years in the archives, I am sure there are still Nelson nuggets to be quarried. In addition to the major collections, answering many of the troubling enquiries necessitated special searches in far-flung places. It soon became clear that the work would extend to more than a single volume, and I decided to end my first in 1797, when Nelson stood on the brink of international fame and had assumed the appearance that would be remembered, with one sleeve empty and one eye sightless. Here, therefore, I have dealt in full with the part of Nelson’s life that has least interested his biographers, his early life and
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