SOURCE: Sternlicht, Sanford V. “Postwar Allegory and Philosophy: 1947-1954.” In C. S. Forester and the Hornblower Saga, pp. 128-41. Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1999.

In the following essay, a revised reprint of the 1981 edition of Sternlicht's book, Sternlicht discusses the strengths and shortcomings of two philosophically oriented novels which were not part of the Hornblower series.

As a world-renowned popular novelist with a following in the millions, and with his Hornblower novels serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, the most widely read family magazine in America, Forester could have stuck to the Hornblower Saga and continued to make a great deal of money and satisfy his readership without writing anything else. Instead, while producing three Hornblower novels in the 1947-1954 period, Forester wrote his two most philosophical novels: The Sky and the Forest (1948) and Randall and the River of Time (1950). He also published a book for adolescents...