"Hornblower and the Widow McCool" is a short story by C. S. Forester, featuring his fictional naval hero, Horatio Hornblower. It was published together with the unfinished novel Hornblower and the Crisis and another short story, "The Last Encounter". It is titled "Hornblower's Temptation" in certain US editions. The story is set very early in Hornblower's career, in 1799 or 1800, after Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, but before Lieutenant Hornblower