The most comprehensive and thoroughly researched account ever written of Horatio Nelson’s early career and rise to prominence — it is certain to become the benchmark book on Nelson.

There have been numerous biographies of Nelson, but most fail to penetrate the mythology encrusting Britain’s greatest naval hero. John Sugden has examined thousands of naval, military, diplomatic and personal documents. He has ruthlessly stripped away the legends and brilliantly reconstructed Nelson’s private and public life.

Nelson: A Dream of Glory charts the period of Nelson’s career most neglected by earlier writers — from childhood to his debut as a public hero after the victory against the Spanish fleet at Cape St. Vincent, when he became an admiral and stood on the verge of international fame.

Dealing with every facet of Nelson’s life — the man, the naval officer and the Georgian — John Sugden offers the only full account of his early voyages and the first complete analysis of the formative incidents in his career including his conflict with civil and naval superiors in the West Indies, his campaigns in Corsica and his service as a commodore in the Mediterranean. Throughout there are revealing discoveries about his relationships with his family, patrons, officers and also, with his women.