The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard - Hardcover

Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir

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9780719532276: The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard

Synopsis

Having killed off Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle turned his attention to a very different hero. Brigadier Etienne Gerard is an officer in Napoleon's army - recklessly brave, engagingly open-hearted, and unshakable, if not a little absurd, in his devotion to the enigmatic Emperor. Conan Doyle's wonderful stories about the Brigadier - all of which are collected here - are as funny as they are hair-raising, and the Brigadier himself has long since found a place in the hearts of his admirers second only to that of the incomparable Holmes.

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About the Author

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. Sent off to boarding school, he cut his teeth as a story - teller amusing his schoolmates with tales and writing letters home to his mother.
He practiced medicine and, in 1900, volunteered as a medic in Africa during the Boer War - he was later knighted for his service. Doyle lost a son, two brothers in law, and two nephews to the Great War. He is remembered for the Sherlock Holmes stories and his novel The Lost World.

From AudioFile

Conan Doyle originally published the humorous stories in this 1896 anthology in "Strand" magazine, where Sherlock Holmes had long comfortably dwelled. These are the first-person war stories of Etienne Gerard, a dandyish, opinionated, conceited, randy, dull-witted, and fearless officer in Napoleon's army. In the canon of satirical military figures Gerard stands (at attention, of course) squarely between Baron Munchausen and the Good Soldier Schweik. Militarism, English boorishness, and French arrogance get the worst from Conan Doyle here. His humor seems to escape narrator Rupert Degas, who exhibits plenty of vigor but little comic finesse. He plays Gerard with a French accent and fully voices the other characters, playing the various accents convincingly while skimping on characterization. A handsome and informative pamphlet accompanies the CD edition. Y.R. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

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