February 4, 1937: Horatio Hornblower Debuts

Gregory Peck starring in the film Captain Horatio Hornblower, 1951

February 4, 1937: The Happy Return, a novel by C.S. Forester, is published. It is the debut of one of the leading heroic characters in English-language literature: Horatio Hornblower.

Cecil Louis Troughton Smith was born on August 27, 1899 in Cairo, where his father was teaching English to Egyptian children. He dropped out of medical school, and was rejected for military service despite World War I going on.

He turned to writing, using the name "C.S. Forester." In addition to the Hornblower novels, of which there would eventually be 11, he wrote the 1935 novel The African Queen, turned into an Oscar-winning film in 1951. During World War II, he worked in propaganda for the British government, and convinced a co-worker, Roald Dahl, to start writing. He died on April 2, 1966.

C.S. Forester

The Happy Return takes place in 1808, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS Lydia, sailing to Nicaragua, then controlled by Spain, to aid the Spanish in the fight against France's dictatorial Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. But Hornblower discovers that the Spanish lord he's supposed to aid has a god complex, and, as a matter of honor, Hornblower must oppose him. The story is similar to that of Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness.

After World War II, Forester lived in America, and, in later books, gave Hornblower a birthdate of July 4, 1776. He also gave him a humble beginning, showing that his rise in the Royal Navy is due to talent, not connections. To aid this, he gave Hornblower a classical education, making him a polyglot and a polymath.

In 1964, Gene Roddenberry pitched his idea for Star Trek to NBC by calling it "Hornblower in space," and later went out of his way to write the character of Captain James T. Kirk as not merely courageous and honorable (if a bit overly interested in women), but as brilliant, "a stack of books with legs."

Hornblower's career begins as a Midshipman in 1794, and ends it as Admiral of the Fleet, age 72, in 1848, in The Last Encounter, published a few weeks after Forester's death. Like Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes in His Last Bow, and Agatha Christie with Hercule Poirot in Curtain: His Last Case, Forester wanted to give Hornblower a definitive last story.

Gregory Peck starred in the 1951 film Captain Horatio Hornblower in 1951. Ioan Gruffudd starred in the ITV series Hornblower from 1998 to 2003, broadcast in American on A&E.

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February 4, 1937 was a Thursday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. These games were played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers played the Detroit Red Wings to a 2-2 tie at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The New York Americans lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 6-2 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Montreal Maroons and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.