''Losing Nelson'' is a 1999 novel by English author

Barry Unsworth Barry Unsworth FRSL (10 August 19304 June 2012) was an English writer known for his historical fiction. He published 17 novels, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel '' Sacred Hunger''. Biograph ...

Synopsis

Its protagonist, Charles Cleasby, who is obsessed with

Lord Nelson Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte ( – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French ...

, attempts to re-enact events of "Horatio"'s life to the point of feeling that he is the admiral, and who is writing a

hagiographic A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an wiktionary:adulatory, adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religi ...

biography. His typist, the down-to-earth Miss Lily, serves as his foil in her criticism of Nelson's ego and treatment of his wife. At the end, when Cleasby has journeyed to Naples to do research in the hope of exonerating his hero for his execution of Admiral Caracciolo and other Neapolitan Jacobins, he murders a child near the location of Nelson's betrayal, simultaneously imagining that he is killing the child Nelson and that the act forever merges him with Nelson.

References

Novels by Barry Unsworth 1999 British novels English novels Cultural depictions of Horatio Nelson Hamish Hamilton books {{1990s-novel-stub