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Nelson – The New Letters
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Book Review: Nelson – The New Letters

Al Berke takes a look at the latest edition to the Royal Naval Museum's Nelson Letters Project with some 507 new letters from Nelsons writings edited and prepared in Colin White's Nelson - The New Letters. This title serves as a preview to the additional hundreds of documents that are still being edited, and as a commemoration of the Battle of Trafalgar, which took place just over 200 years ago.

Published 10 JUL 2005

Categorieseurope, naval combat, 18th century

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Introduction

The Nelson Letters Project, started in 1999 by the RoyalNaval Museum and then joined by the National Maritime Museum in 2001, has been engaged in an extensive search of archives to locate Nelson material previously unpublished. The initial intent was to formally publish the results in time for the two hundred year anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in October 2005. It turned out, however, that the project revealed about 1300 new documents. Given this amount of material and the continued evidence that many previously published letters had been heavily edited, the decision was made to put together a completely new edition of all of Nelson’s letters. Since this was going to take much longer than the time allotted, 507 new letters were chosen to form the framework of Nelson – The New Letters,a offering that serves as a preview, a commemoration of the Battle of Trafalgar and a complete book in its own right.

Graphics and Editing

Nelson – The New Letters is a nicely presented hardcover edition of 525 pages. Charts covering the major operational theatres are in the front, with specific battle illustrations appropriately placed in the text. There are four sets of glossy plates, with one in color and the others in black and white, mostly paintings and drawings, though there are a few photographs, including some of the actual letters. The overall effect is tasteful yet dynamic.


Nelson as a young Captain By Francis Rigaud © National Maritime Museum, London	Detail from Nelson’s writing desk © Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth

The Book

There are six parts to Nelson – The New Letters, but the book really comprises two distinct sections. Part one, entitled The Man and the Admiral, offers a cross section of letters grouped in seven chapters: Family, Friends, Lovers, Leadership Style, Popular Image, Patronage, and Humanity. Mr. White introduces each chapter with a narration describing this aspect of Nelson’s life and discussing the letters and how they were located. One of the most interesting parts of these narrations, not just in this section, but throughout the entire book, is the discussion of letters that were either suppressed or edited to “ensure” Nelson’s reputation. Thus many of his letters to his mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton, are revealed to have been heavily edited in previous collections.

The second section and bulk of the book is a chronological presentation of letters covering Nelson’s career from 1778 to 1805. The parts are titled The Hero Emerges: 1777-1797, Squadron Commander, Mediterranean: 1798-1800, Northern Waters: 1801, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean: 1803-1805 and The Trafalgar Campaign: January-October 1805. Each part consists of several chapters, all beginning with a narration by Mr. White. The combination of biography, analysis of the included letters and then the letters themselves flows well and gave me an added insight into Nelson’s own words.

Included in these chapters are both complementary materials, such as private letters to Captains that accompanied more formal orders previously published and complete “runs” of letters from areas only lightly touched on before. Part Five, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean: 1803-1805 has specific sections on diplomacy, intelligence, and the part played by the Island of Sardinia as a lead up to the Battle of Trafalgar.

From a wargamer’s point of view there are some detailed pre-battle orders that give a good feel for Nelson’s intentions - words such as “The Commanders of the Divisions are to observe that no considerations are to induce them to separate from pursuing the Enemy…” (Nelson – The New Letters p. 213). Since this is mostly new material and not a full biography, detailed descriptions of the famous battles will have to be found elsewhere as those dispatches have already been previously published.

Nelson – The New Letters concludes with three appendices, a chronological time line, a list of all the ships that Nelson served on, and short biographies of the principal recipients of the letters in the book. A detailed bibliography is also included.

Summary

In Nelson – The New Letters, editor Colin White has taken 507 previously unpublished documents written by Lord Nelson and presented them in a logical and enjoyable framework. I came away from my reading with a better understanding of both this great naval hero and how these latest letters fit into the larger collection. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in Lord Nelson and the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars who have not yet tackled Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas’ multi-volume The Dispatches and Letters of Lord Nelson. That way readers can get their feet wet with a collection of letters before expending resources on the whole collection. Nelson scholars who already have Nicolas and are familiar with Mr. White’s prose may decide to wait until the Nelson Letters Project meets its goal of a new compilation of all existing dispatches and letters, both old and new. Not knowing how long that wait is, Nelson – The New Letters seems to provide a high quality gap-filler for the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar.

About the Author

Al Berke is a retired Naval Officer living in Virginia Beach, Virginia. An Air Force brat, he got his start in wargaming in 1968 with Avalon Hill's Gettysburg, which proved to be a complete mystery until Tactics II showed him the light. Al turned to computer wargaming out of necessity after years of being unable to finish a boardgame due to the assaults of the family cats. He is also an avid military history buff, equally enjoying Simpkins on armor, Morrison on Midway and Jablonski on the 8th Air Force.