Went the Day Well?: Witnessing Waterloo - Hardcover

Crane, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307594920 ISBN 13: 9780307594921

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group, 2015

Synopsis

Midnight, Sunday, June 18, 1815. Britain holds its breath. Since Napoleon s escape from Elba in February, Europe has been jolted from eleven months of peace back into the frenzied panic of a war it believed had ended. The whole complexion of the world is changed again, writes George Ticknor, then a young American lawyer in Britain for the first time. God only can forsee the consequences. The nation is awash in reports and rumors. The Battle of Waterloo is close at hand.
Went the Day Well? is an astonishing hour-by-hour chronicle that starts the day before the battle that reset the course of world history and continues to its aftermath. Switching perspectives between Britain and Belgium, prison and palace, poet and pauper, lover and betrothed, husband and wife, David Crane paints a picture of Britain as it was that summer when everything changed. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources from newspapers and journals to letters and poems Went the Day Well? offers a highly original view of Waterloo, grand in scope but meticulous in detail.
What was Britain doing on that Sunday, from the mad king downward? Who were born to live out their lives in the Britain created at Waterloo? Who died? Who was preaching, who was writing and who was painting? Lyrically rendered in Crane s signature prose style, Went the Day Well? freeze-frames the men and women of Britain in 1815 as they went about their business, attended lectures, worked in fields and factories all on the cusp of a new, unforeseeable age.

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About this title

Review:

"A delightful chronicle of how Britons, famous and obscure, in and out of the Duke of Wellington's army, experienced the iconic battle. . . . Readers will marvel. . . . A historical tour de force a fascinating panorama of Great Britain during the summer of Waterloo." "Kirkus" (Starred Review)"

Of the many books that have been written to mark this year s bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo, Crane s surely ranks among the most original. His is not just the story of the climactic carnage that ended the Napoleonic Wars, but a finely balanced narrative that flits seamlessly between the battlefield and the British home front. . . . Crane holds up the battle as a lens through which we see a warts-and-all portrait of Britain 200 years ago. Mike Rapport, The New York Times Book Review
"A delightful chronicle of how Britons, famous and obscure, in and out of the Duke of Wellington's army, experienced the iconic battle. . . . Readers will marvel. . . . A historical tour de force a fascinating panorama of Great Britain during the summer of Waterloo." Kirkus (Starred Review)
Crane accents his well-paced, fluid style with nice poetic touches, and he succeeds admirably. Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)"

About the Author:

DAVID CRANE read history and English at Oxford University before becoming a lecturer at universities in Holland, Japan and Africa. His previous books include Scott of the Antarctic, Empires of the Dead and The Kindness of Sisters. He lives in northwest Scotland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0307594920
• ISBN 13: 9780307594921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 366