Portrait of C. S. Forester

Birthday profile

C. S. Forester

C. S. Forester, English novelist (died 1966)

Born
August 27, 1899
Died
April 2, 1966
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1899

About C. S. Forester

Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 – 2 April 1966), best known by his pen name C. S. Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars. The Hornblower novels A Ship of the Line and Flying Colours were jointly awarded the 1938 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Other works include The African Queen and The Good Shepherd, both of which were later adapted as movies. During World War II, he moved to the United States where he worked for the British Ministry of Information, writing propaganda for the Allied cause. He eventually settled in Fullerton, California, where he died in 1966 of complications arising from a stroke. == Early years == Forester was born in Cairo on 27 August 1899, fifth and youngest child of George Foster Smith and his wife Sarah Troughton. His father was an English teacher in a local school set up to give upper-class Egyptian boys an English education. His parents separated when he was young, and his mother took him to London, where he was educated at Alleyn's School and Dulwich College. He began to study medicine at Guy's Hospital, but left without completing his degree. He was somewhat athletic, wore glasses, and had a slender physique.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

The world when C. S. Forester was born

C. S. Forester was born in 1899. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlinePhilippine-American War begins
  • Technology milestoneFirst magnetic recording of sound
  • World population~1.59B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam McKinley
  • U.S. population72.0M

1899 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in C. S. Forester's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18992026
Population72.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.