Perhaps you have read a Horatio Hornblower novel. This blue plaque commemorates the novelist C. S. Forester. It marks the Underhill Road residence where Cecil Louis Troughton Smith lived. He is better known by his pen name C. S. Forester.
English Heritage erected this plaque in 1990. It stands at 58 Underhill Road in East Dulwich. This is in the London Borough of Southwark. Forester lived here from 1915 to 1929. He moved here at the age of 16.
C. S. Forester was born in 1899 and died in 1966. He is celebrated for his naval warfare tales. The Horatio Hornblower series is his most famous work. These novels depict a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars.
Forester’s impact extends beyond his novels. In 1942 while living in Washington D.C. he met Roald Dahl. Dahl was a young British intelligence officer. Forester encouraged Dahl to write about his RAF experiences.
According to Dahl’s autobiography, Forester prompted him to write his first story. That story was titled “A Piece of Cake.” So, in a way, we also have C. S. Forester to thank for Roald Dahl’s writing career.
Before his time in Washington D.C., Forester moved from Underhill Road. In 1932 he moved to Upper Sydenham. Later in life, Forester split with his wife just before World War II. He then emigrated to the United States. There, he worked for the British Information Service. He wrote propaganda and continued his Hornblower series until his death. The final novels were published posthumously.
One of Forester’s earlier novels had a very different genre. It was a crime novel called “Payment Deferred.” This novel has a south London setting. William Marble is the main character. He is a middle-aged bank clerk. Marble’s household is living beyond its means. This is due to his extravagant wife. Being a crime novel, there has to be a crime. Not surprisingly this is murder.
The setting of the fictional house of 53 Malcolm Road is probably an amalgamation of several locations. At the time of writing “Payment Deferred”, Forester was living at 58 Underhill Road in East Dulwich. He had grown up in the Peckham/Camberwell borders of Shenley Road.
The feel of the long walks up the long streets from Peckham Road appear in several passages. The house in Malcom Road was much smaller. It was much more reminiscent of some of the streets of smaller houses on the Peckham and East Dulwich borders.
As you stand here at 58 Underhill Road, imagine the world that C. S. Forester created. Think of Hornblower sailing the seas. Envision the London streets in “Payment Deferred”. This plaque marks not just a residence. It marks the place where imagination took flight.