Losing Nelson
Encyclopedia
Losing Nelson is a 1999 novel by Barry Unsworth
. Its protagonist is Charles Cleasby, who is obsessed with Lord Nelson, 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 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.
Barry Unsworth
Barry Unsworth is a British novelist who is known for novels with historical themes. He has published 15 novels, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger....
. Its protagonist is Charles Cleasby, who is obsessed with Lord Nelson, 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 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
Frances Nelson
Frances "Fanny" Nelson, Viscountess Nelson , is best known as the wife of Horatio Nelson, the British naval officer who won several victories over the French during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....
. 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.