The battle of Trafalgar has now passed into national mythology. The expertise, courage, determination and confidence which gave Britain a victory of spectacular finality in October 1805 also provided her with one of her great legendary figures - a naval hero in life but much more like a national, if very secular, saint in death. However, like the noise and smoke of battle, legends have a habit of obscuring facts and, having embodied themselves in popular imagination, are transcribed to the history books. Captain Bennett was, for many years, a serving officer in the Royal Navy as well as being one of the most highly regarded naval historians of his time. He sets the battle in the context of the world-wide struggle against Napoleon, describes the ships, their crews and the tactics of the action. In his scholarly but immensely readable account of the battle he discusses the preparatory manoeuvres and the mechanics of naval warfare in the age of sail. He illustrates the text with many diagrams.