~ finding the right voice ~
In his nearly fifty years in the navy, keeping a diary throughout, he rose to become a fine seaman, a master of gunnery, a battle commander the equal of his friend - and rival in love - Nelson. He was also an accomplished writer and wit, a doting father, inveterate gossip, and consummate diplomat and strategist. " "Collingwood's service took him to Boston, where he lived and fought during the American Revolution; to Antigua, where he and Nelson both fell in love with Mary Moutray, and drew each other's portraits; to Corsica; Sicily; and Menorca, where he began as a young midshipman and ended his career as the effective viceroy of the Mediterranean, dealing with beys and pashas, kings and queens and an eighty-strong fleet. Based on Collingwood's letters and recently discovered log books, here is an intimate view not just of the man himself, but of his life and times, of shipboard ways and all too brief periods on shore with his family. Max Adams travelled extensively around the Mediterranean and Caribbean to research this story of a man who gave his life to the navy in the glory years of the age of sail: the world of Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower made real. "--BOOK JACKET.