The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (Canongate Classics)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Owen Dudley Edwards

ISBN 10: 0862413419 / ISBN 13: 9780862413415

Published by Canongate Books Ltd 01/07/2010, 2010

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # 6545-9780862413415

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (Canongate Classics)
• Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd 01/07/2010
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0862413419
• ISBN 13: 9780862413415
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

'...if he has the thickest head he also has the stoutest heart in my army.' Thus spake Napoleon of Brigadier Etienne Gerard, and thus was established the formula for the great series of historical short stories which Conan Doyle inaugurated in the Strand magazine. Brigadier Gerard, an impeccably dressed young hussar, is a figure of fun as well as a soldier of great courage. In the spirit of Don Quixote or the Three Musketeers, he crosses the battlefields of Europe in a series of dashing adventures. Through Gerard, Conan Doyle brings Napoleon within our grasp, and with him the intricacies of a restless Europe under Napoleon's shadow. Gerard is one of Conan Doyle's most entertaining characters and surely one that must have influenced the making of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman, so outrageous and fortunate is this farcical character. The introducer and editor of this edition, historian and critic Owen Dudley Edwards, is also the author of the highly acclaimed biography The Quest for Sherlock Holmes.

About the Author

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was an Irish-Scots writer and physician, most noted for creating the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and writing stories about him which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland.[6][7] His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was English, of Irish Catholic descent, and his mother, Mary (née Foley), was Irish Catholic. His parents married in 1855.[8] In 1864 the family dispersed due to Charles's growing alcoholism and the children were temporarily housed across Edinburgh. In 1867, the family came together again and lived in squalid tenement flats at 3 Sciennes Place.[9] Doyle's father died in 1893, in the Crichton Royal, Dumfries, after many years of psychiatric illness.[10][11] Supported by wealthy uncles, Doyle was sent to the Jesuit preparatory school Hodder Place, Stonyhurst, at the age of nine (1868–70). He then went on to Stonyhurst College until 1875. From 1875 to 1876, he was educated at the Jesuit school Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Austria.[9] He later rejected the Catholic faith and become an agnostic.[12] He also later became a spiritualist mystic. He is also known for writing the fictional adventures of a second character he invented, Professor Challenger, and for popularising the mystery of the Mary Celeste. He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.