Terry Coleman, . . Oxford Univ., $35 (472pp) ISBN 978-0-19-514741-4 Veteran British historian Coleman (Going to America) now tackles the life of Horatio Nelson, Britain's most celebrated naval hero.

Adm. Horatio Nelson became a national idol after smashing Napoleon's fleet in the 1798 Battle of the Nile. Killed in the victory at Trafalgar in 1805, he became England's greatest naval hero.

British naval hero Adm. Horatio Nelson did not wear a patch to hide his blind right eye, according to new evidence that blows out of the water a myth dating from the mid-19th century that was ...