NELSON Here, from two of the United Kingdom's finest naval historians, is an immensely human portrait of Horatio Nelson, the most brilliant and most honored naval leader Britain has ever known. A great seaman and tactician who possessed an extraordinary ability to inspire respect and devotion, Nelson was a myriad of contradictions - humble yet ambitious, kind but at times petulant, exceptionally charming but often vain and self-pitying, unswerving in his sense of professional duty yet involved in a scandalous love affair. The Howarths have captured not only the man but his time, evoking a remarkable sense of what it was like to sail the seas in Nelson's day, in peace and in war. The great battles of St. Vincent, the Nile, and Copenhagen spring to life, as do the achievements of the British blockading fleet off the French coast in the months and years before the victory at Trafalgar - a victory so decisive and devastating that it put an end to war at sea for a century. This penetrating biography brings us closer than ever before to an understanding of one of England's most revered heroes, who even during his lifetime secured an enduring place in the hearts of an entire nation. (53/4 X 9, 408 pages, b&w photos)