RALEIGH, NC: Many have tried to describe Admiral Horatio Nelson. In so many ways, he was an enigma.

The new book I, Horatio by Donald A. Tortorice attempts to explain Admiral Nelson in a way no other text has. It is the first presentation to be narrated in the first person, a recounting of Nelson’s life in his own words.

This is a book of history and fiction. Its plot is taken from history. All of Nelson’s assignments, missions and engagements with the enemy are true. Tortorice presents a chronology based upon a timeline of events that actually happened. Letters, dispatches and many historical quotes are taken from historical fact and are presented in italics. However, major elements of the book are fiction.

We can never know exactly what Nelson may have been thinking and what he actually said during the various dramatic episodes of his life.

“I’ve been interested in his life since I was a midshipman at the University of Texas,” Tortorice says. “When I retired from teaching law, I spent the next two years writing this book.”

I, Horatio begins with Nelson as a young 21-year-old captain in the Caribbean and goes to his death at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Along the way his experiences in carrying out the vision of his duty in the Caribbean, Corsica, Tenerife, the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar cost him his eye, his right arm, and ultimately his life.

“This is his story as he would tell it,” Tortorice says.