The English Civil War : Myth, Legend and Popular Memory

Charles J Esdaile

ISBN 10: 139903748X / ISBN 13: 9781399037488

Published by Pen & Sword Books Ltd Sep 2024, 2024

About this Item

Neuware - How Cavaliers and Roundheads in English ghost stories reflect historical trauma, integrating detailed regional history of the 1642-1651 conflicts.Cavaliers and Roundheads are figures who appear in hundreds of English ghost stories. In this innovative account, Charles Esdaile argues that such tales are in reality folk memories of an episode of English history that was second only to the Black Death in terms of individual and collective suffering alike, and, further, that they reveal important truths about the way in which the conflict was represented: it is no surprise, then, to find that spectral Cavaliers are often romantic figures and revenant Roundheads grim ones full of menace. Yet, the book is no mere catalogue. On the contrary, rather than being discussed in a vacuum, the tales of haunting are rather set within a detailed regional history of the conflicts of 1642-1651 of a sort that has never yet been attempted, but is, for all that, badly needed.

Seller Inventory # 9781399037488

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The English Civil War : Myth, Legend and Popular Memory
• Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd Sep 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 139903748X
• ISBN 13: 9781399037488
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 238W x 157H x 34D millimeters 238 millimeters width by 157 millimeters height by 34 millimeters depth
• Weight: 560 grams

About this title

Synopsis

How Cavaliers and Roundheads in English ghost stories reflect historical trauma, integrating detailed regional history of the 1642-1651 conflicts.

Cavaliers and Roundheads are figures who appear in hundreds of English ghost stories. In this innovative account, Charles Esdaile argues that such tales are in reality folk memories of an episode of English history that was second only to the Black Death in terms of individual and collective suffering alike, and, further, that they reveal important truths about the way in which the conflict was represented: it is no surprise, then, to find that spectral Cavaliers are often romantic figures and revenant Roundheads grim ones full of menace. Yet, the book is no mere catalogue. On the contrary, rather than being discussed in a vacuum, the tales of haunting are rather set within a detailed regional history of the conflicts of 1642-1651 of a sort that has never yet been attempted, but is, for all that, badly needed.

About the Author

Professor Charles J. Esdaile is one of the leading historians of the Napoleonic era and holds a personal chair at the University of Liverpool. His wide-ranging history of Napoleon's attempt to conquer Spain and Portugal, The Peninsular War: A New History, and his international history of the Napoleonic period, Napoleon’s Wars, are classic works on the subject. In addition to his many articles and books on the Peninsular War and the Napoleonic Wars in general, he has made a special study of the Waterloo campaign.