There are some eras that just work – in historical fiction books – in a way that others don’t. So, we have endless stories of the Roman legions, but  few of the English Civil War (although my theory for that is that very few writers today can find their way into the headspace of the Parliamentarian/Puritans). But of all the eras, none has proved itself better suited to books than the Napoleonic Wars: Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books and, of course, but, in my case, shamefully unread, CS Forester’s Hornblower series.

Well, now I’ve started reading Hornblower, and I’m hitting myself over the head with a copy of A History of London (and if you’ve seen or, worse, tried to pick this up, you’ll know how serious a self castigation this is!) for taking so long about it. This is marvellous, completely page-turning stuff. The useful introduction in this edition, by Bernard Cornwell, told me that Forester had been writing Hornblower novels for a while before he produced this one, returning to the youth of his hero to fill in background, and it does not always work to read a series in chronological rather than publication order (Narnia, for instance, should certainly be read with the same sense of discovery as Lewis himself found in writing it, rather than from its Genesis to its Apocalypse), yet with Hornblower this looks to be the right approach. I’m thoroughly enjoying making the acquaintance of this geeky (before they’d invented the word) youth, as he makes his uncertain way into the senior service, complete with acute seasickness.

As to why Napoleonic-era novels work so well, I suspect it has to do with the time itself: the conflict that brought into being the modern era also bears many of the characteristics of the ancien regime it displaced: so prisoners might give their word on parole, and it be accepted, that they would not escape; there was the wonder of a world still being discovered; and yet, the first indications of the unique savagery of modern, industrial warfare in the massed cannonades and vicious guerilla warfare of the Peninsular conflict. The Napoleonic Wars closed one era and began another: no wonder they work so well in books.