Nelson: The Sword of Albion

Nelson: we think that we are familiar with the man behind the name. But, in this second volume of his authoritative biography, John Sugden delves behind the myths, strips back the apocrypha, and reveals a figure both intimately familiar and greatly estranged.

Sugden interweaves graphic accounts of the well-known battles of the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar with Nelson's lesser-known but equally gripping campaigns to liberate the Italian states from French domination, his role in the blockade of Malta and his turbulent relations with the volatile Barbary powers, often snatching remarkable triumphs from crippling reverses.

But behind his military prowess was a man riven with paradoxes and schisms at the very heart of his personal life. Sugden paints a vivid composition of Nelson as glory-hunter and national hero, humanitarian and hardened military leader, family man and adulterer.

Sugden opens up to us a man who was ever thwarted in his quest for happiness and pers