C. S. Forester was born in Cairo but moved to London with his mother where he was educated at Alleyn's School and Dulwich College. He began to study medicine at Guy's Hospital, London, but left without completing his degree and established himself as a professional writer in the early 1920s. Rejected by the army, he moved to America during the Second World War and wrote propaganda for the British Information Service. He eventually settled in California and died in 1966. Forester is best known for his twelve-book Horatio Hornblower series, set during the Napoleonic wars, and for The African Queen (1935), which was made famous by the film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart and Catherine Hepburn.