The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard - Softcover

Doyle, Arthur Conan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 086299148X ISBN 13: 9780862991487

Publisher: Alan Sutton, 1984

Synopsis

In Gerard, Conan Doyle brough to life a really memorable and living character: a vain, brave French brigadier with an amusing touch of stupidity whose adventures in the Napoleaonic Wars have delighted readers ever since he first charged onto the scene.

He is brash and boastful in relating his exploits with his beloved hussars during twenty years of fighting. Berlin, Naples, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Moscow - we stabled our horses in them all. This delightfully flamboyant, supremely brave character carries the reader through twelve campaigns, across the length and breadth of Europe, in a series of breathtaking escapades. All the excitement of this colourful period is captured in the very best of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's many historical creations.

Cover picture: Original engraving of Talleyrand, Lasalle and Gerard; hand tinted by Shelagh Davies.

About this title

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Alan Sutton
• Publication date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 086299148X
• ISBN 13: 9780862991487
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 182