The secondary literature on the Royal Navy of this period is very large. In contrast, comparatively few first-hand accounts exist of the wars and life at sea owing to the generally poor literacy of officers and the almost total inability of ordinary seamen to read or write. Those seeking information on the general workings of the Navy should consult Blake, Goodwin, Maynard and Rodger, all of which provide a basic foundation on the subject, with Lavery’s Nelson’s Navy providing even greater detail. Fighting tactics are well covered in Adkin, Davies, Gardiner, Harding, Harland, Ireland, Lambert, Tracy and Tunstall, while the battles themselves are given detailed treatment in Clowes, Ireland, Lambert, Lyon, Padfield, Rodger, Tracy and Warner. Books concentrating on Trafalgar may be easily identified from amongst the list that follows. The more technical side of the ships themselves is covered in Lavery, Davies, Gardiner, Harland, Henry and Konstam. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Navy seen in the broad context of the age is discussed in Adkins and Adkins, Clowes, Harding, Herman, Ireland, Lambert and Padfield.
Adkin, Mark, The Trafalgar Companion: The Complete Guide to History’s Most Famous Sea Battle and the Life of Admiral Lord Nelson London: Aurum Press, 2005
Adkins, Roy, Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle London: Little Brown, 2004
Adkins, Roy, and Adkins, Lesley, The War for All the Oceans: From Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo London: Little, Brown, 2006
Ballantyne, Iain, and Eastland, Jonathan, HMS Victory London: Leo Cooper, 2005
Bennett, Geoffrey, The Battle of Trafalgar Barnsley: Wharncliffe Books, 2004
Best, Nicholas, Trafalgar: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sea Battle in History London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005
Blake, Nicholas, Steering to Glory: A Day in the Life of a Ship of the Line London: Chatham Publishing, 2005
Blake, Nicholas, and Lawrence, Richard, The Illustrated Companion to Nelson’s Navy London: Chatham Publishing, 2005
Brownlee, Walter, The Navy that Beat Napoleon Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980
Clayton, Tim, and Craig, Phil, Trafalgar London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., 2004
Clowes, William Laird, The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900 7 vols. London: Chatham Publishing, 1997
Davies, David, Fighting Ships: Ships of the Line, 1793–1815 London: Constable, 1996
Fraser, Edward, The Sailors whom Nelson Led London: Chatham Publishing, 2004
Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, Warrior 100: Nelson’s Sailors Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2005
Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, Campaign 157: Trafalgar 1805 Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2005
Gardiner, Robert, (ed.) The Campaign of Trafalgar, 1803–1805 London: Chatham Publishing, 2002
Gardiner, Robert, The Heavy Frigate: 18-pounder Frigates, 1778–1800 London: Conway Maritime Press, 1994
Gardiner, Robert, (ed.) The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship, 1650–1840 Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992
Gardiner, Robert, Warships of the Napoleonic Wars London: Chatham Publishing, 2003
Goodwin, Peter, Men O’War: The Illustrated Story of Life in Nelson’s Navy London: National Maritime Museum, 2004
Goodwin, Peter, Nelson’s Victory: 101 Questions and Answers about HMS Victory, Nelson’s Flagship at Trafalgar 1805 London: Brassey’s, 2004
Goodwin, Peter, The Ships of Trafalgar: The British, French and Spanish Fleets, 21 October 1805 London: Conway Maritime Press, 2005
Hall, C. D., Wellington’s Navy: Sea Power and the Peninsular War, 1807–1814 London: Chatham Publishing, 2004
Harbron, John, Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy: The Spanish Experience of Sea Power London: Conway Maritime Press, 2004
Harding, Richard, Seapower and Naval Warfare, 1650–1830 London: UCL Press, 1999
Harland, John, Seamanship in the Age of Sail London: Conway Maritime Press, 1984
Hart, Roger, England Expects London: Wayland Publishers, 1972
Haythornthwaite, Philip, Elite 48: Nelson’s Navy Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1999
Heathcote, T. A., Nelson’s Trafalgar Captains and their Battles Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2005
Henry, Chris, New Vanguard 90: Napoleonic Naval Armaments 1792–1815 Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004
Herman, Arthur, To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2005
Ireland, Bernard, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: War at Sea, 1756–1815 New York: Norton, 2000
Konstam, Angus, New Vanguard 42: British Napoleonic Ship-of-the-Line Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001
Lambert, Andrew, War at Sea in the Age of Sail London: Cassell, 2000
Lavery, Brian, The Arming and Fittings of English Ships of War, 1600–1815 London: Conway Maritime Press, 1999
Lavery, Brian, Jack Aubrey Commands: An Historical Companion to the Naval World of Patrick O’Brian London: Conway Maritime Press, 2003
Lavery, Brian, Nelson’s Fleet at Trafalgar Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004
Lavery, Brian, Nelson’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1793–1815 London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992
Lavery, Brian, Shipboard Life and Organisation, 1731–1815 London: Ashgate, 1999
Lavery, Brian, The Ship of the Line. Vol. 1: The Development of the Battlefleet, 1650–1850 London: Conway Maritime Press, 1984
Lavery, Brian, The Ship of the Line. Vol. 2: Design, Construction and Fitting London: Conway Maritime Press, 1997
Lee, Christopher, Nelson and Napoleon: The Long Haul to Trafalgar London: Headline Book Publishing, 2005
LeFevre, Peter, Nelson’s Fleet at Trafalgar Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004
Legg, Stuart, Trafalgar: An Eyewitness Account of a Great Battle London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1966
Lewis, Jon E., (ed.) The Mammoth Book of Life Before the Mast London: Robinson, 2001
Lewis, Michael A., A Social History of the Navy, 1793–1815 London: Chatham Publishing, 2004
Lyon, David, Sea Battles in Close-up: The Age of Nelson Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996
Maine, René, Trafalgar: Napoleon’s Naval Waterloo London: Thames and Hudson, 1957
Masefield, John, Sea Life in Nelson’s Time Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2002
Maynard, C., (ed.) A Nelson Companion: A Guide to the Royal Navy of Jack Aubrey London: Michael O’Mara Books, 2004
McGowan, Alan, HMS Victory: Her Construction, Career and Restoration London: Chatham Publishing, 1999
McKay, John, 100 Gun Ship “Victory” London: Conway Maritime Press, 2000
Morriss, Roger, The Royal Dockyards during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1983
Mostert, Noel, The Line Upon the Wind: An Intimate History of the Last and Greatest War Fought at Sea under Sail, 1793–1815 London: Jonathan Cape, 2007
Nicolson, Adam, Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero London: HarperCollins, 2005
Padfield, Peter, Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World, 1788–1851 London: John Murray, 2003
Pivka, Otto von, Navies of the Napoleonic Era New York: Hippocrene, 1980
Pope, Dudley, England Expects: Nelson and the Trafalgar Campaign London: Chatham Publishing, 1999
Pope, Dudley, Life in Nelson’s Navy London: Chatham Publishing, 1997
Pope, Stephen, Hornblower’s Navy: Life at Sea in the Age of Nelson London: Welcome Rain, 1998
Robson, Martin, The Battle of Trafalgar London: Conway Maritime Press, 2005
Rodger, N. A. M., The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815 London: Penguin, 2004
Rodger, N. A. M., The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy London: Fontana Press, 1988
Schom. Alan, Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle, 1803–1805 London: Penguin Books, 1992
Smith, Digby, Navies of the Napoleonic Era London: Schiffer Publishing, 2004
Stilwell, Alexander, (ed.) The Trafalgar Companion Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2005
Terraine, John, Trafalgar London: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1998
Tracy, Nicholas, Nelson’s Battles: The Art of Victory in the Age of Sail London: Chatham Publishing, 1996
Tunstall, Brian, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: The Evolution of Fighting Tactics, 1680–1815 London: Conway Maritime Press, 2001.
Warner, Oliver, Nelson’s Battles London: Batsford, 1965
Warner, Oliver, Trafalgar London: Pan Books, 1966
Winfield, Rif, British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793–1817 London: Chatham Publishing, 2005