The re-release of this long-lost gem from 1897 coincides with the Trafalgar bicentennial events currently underway, the culmination of the celebration of `The Nelson Decade’. The author, W. Clark Russell, was one of the nineteenth-century’s most popular and prolific writers of nautical literature, and his short stories and novels were so widely read that they were mentioned in other novels of the day. Largely forgotten today is the fact that Russell brought his prodigious storytelling talents to bear upon the true-life exploits of Admiral Lord Nelson. In 1890 Russell published a dense and lengthy biography of the admiral that left no stone unturned about the naval hero’s life. With the timelessness of a good novel, the much leaner and better-paced Pictures focuses solely on the action-filled episodes of the Nelson saga. Modern-day readers who revel in the works of Patrick O’Brian and C. S. Forester will find it to be just as enjoyable as did Russell’s contemporaries. W. Clark Russell, the Patrick O’Brian of the nineteenth century, is the author of the novel The Wreck of the Grosvenor, among numerous other works.
