ABSTRACT
Early Life Despite C. S. Forester's enduring popularity as a writer, his life has attracted little scholarly inquiry. Consequently, his own writings-especially his deceptively candid autobiography, Long Before Forty (1967)—have provided most of what is known about him. Unfortunately, much of what he wrote is untrue. He claimed, for example, that his parents were named "Forester." He was actually the fifth child and third son of an English couple named George Foster Smith and Sarah Medhurst Troughton. Born in Egypt as Cecil Lewis Troughton Smith, he grew up suspecting that his real father was an Egyptian with whom his mother had an adulterous affair. As he came to despise his English parents and ancestors, the idea of being part Egyptian delighted him; however, his fear of public discovery led him to lie about his early history.
