THIS WEIGHTY VOLUME is a formidable addition to the alreadv crowded Nelson canon. As well as Southev's biogriphy, which held the popular field for nearl; a century, there are splendid works by the great Alfred Mahan and I Sir Julian Corbett, by Carola Oman and Sir Arthur Bryant, and, more recently by Tom Pocock and Dudley Pope, to which should be added, for an understanding of Nelson's professional career, N A M Rodger's study of the Georgian navy, The Wooden World.

Edgar Vincent has worked I hardand purposefully to join this select group. He has gone back to the primary sources, both printed and in manuscript, to build up his narrative, and much of it consists of wellchosen quotations from Nelson's I contemporaries or extracts from his copious correspondence. Nelson had a gift