'Cecil Scott Forester' was born on 27th August, 1899 in Cairo, Egypt. He was educated in England at Alleyn's School and Dulwich College, at neither of which, he said, he made any particular impression except as an extremely naughty boy. He left Dulwich College and attempted to take up medicine but soon found that his real vocation was storytelling and writing. Always an enthusiastic reader as a child (he used to devour complete encyclopedias) he used his extensive and eclectic knowledge to make his stories very readable and popular. He is possibly most famous for the Hornblower series of novels which intersperse tales of great human understanding with a high level of technical expertise - even though he was never in the navy.