Britain’s greatest naval hero suffered from seasickness his entire life and won his most famous victories missing an arm and the sight in one eye. Drawing on Nelson’s own letters, the logs of HMS Victory, and naval records, this deep dive looks past the bronze statue to the fragile, vain, rule-breaking man underneath.

We trace Horatio Nelson from a Norfolk rectory and early brushes with death in the Arctic, the East Indies, and Nicaragua to his frustrating peacetime years and a pragmatic marriage. Then come the battles: Cape St. Vincent, the disastrous Tenerife assault, the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, alongside his scandalous affair with Emma Hamilton and the government’s betrayal of his dying wish.

• How surviving malaria, yellow fever, and the Arctic gave Nelson a fatalistic courage
• Why breaking the line of battle at Cape St. Vincent could have ended his career
• How British ships attacked the unprepared shoreward side of the French fleet at the Nile
• The famous blind-eye moment at Copenhagen and the Nelson Touch before Trafalgar
• Why Emma Hamilton was barred from his funeral and later died in poverty