C. S. Forester

Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 – 2 April 1966), best known by his pen name C.S. Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars. The Hornblower novels A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours were jointly awarded the 1938 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Other works include The African Queen and The Good Shepherd, both of which were later adapted as movies. During World War II, he moved to the United States where he worked for the British Ministry of Information, writing propaganda for the Allied cause. He eventually settled in Fullerton, California, where he died in 1966 of complications arising from a stroke.