Mammoth Book of Sword and Honor

Book Description
The Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the Zulu conflict in Africa, the Civil War in America-in the nineteenth century, on battlefields around the world, cavalrymen and infantry marched into combat that was unparalleled in the number of lives it claimed and the amount of blood it shed. For the common soldier on the front lines at this time, swords and bayonets, not rifles and heavy artillery, defined the day-to-day fighting experience. Out of that experience have been woven some of the most memorable tales of courage in our literature. While some of the nearly thirty stories in this anthology are culled from classics by such celebrated fiction writers as Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexander Dumas, Prosper Merimee, Ambrose Bierce, and Stephen Crane, others have been especially commissioned for this volume. John Jakes, for one, brings to life a crucial moment of military doubt in his tale of the American Civil War, while John Aquino illuminates anew the military character of a young Robert E. Lee. Just as Richard Howard revisits the Napoleonic era with a new Alain Luisard story, so does Garry Douglas return to the Crimean War with a new adventure of Sergeant John Crossman, and George Macdonald Fraser embroils his redoubtable Flashman in the Indian Mutiny. In all, there's adventure enough to thrill readers of any century.


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This marvelous collection of "stories of desperate courage and hard-won victories" hearken back to a time when it was ungentlemanly to use spies or to attempt to escape when captured and when uniforms were one step out of The Student Prince. There are 26 action-packed fictional accounts of battles from 19th-century wars in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. As an added bonus, the personal accounts of ten winners of the Victoria Cross (Great Britain's highest award for bravery and valor) are included. Many of the stories were written by well-known authors, including Joseph Conrad, Alexander Dumas, Mark Twain, and John Jakes. There are also stories by women, about women, and one in which a woman disguises herself as a man to serve in the army. The pages turn miraculously quickly. Simply put, it is difficult to put down stories that fairly burst with excitement. In more than one case, the hero is locked in hand-to-hand combat with a deadly foe. In others, soldiers with fixed bayonets charge into a battery of death-spewing cannons. In another, a woman leads her blind husband and two small children through enemy-infested mountains in Afghanistan. Sometimes the human enemy is not the main concern. In one case, British soldiers move slowly through the Louisiana swamps more fearful of gators and water moccasins than of the ragtag Americans. Entertaining and worthwhile. KLIATT Codes: JSA—Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2000, Carroll & Graf, 590p, 20cm, $11.95. Ages 13 to adult. Reviewer: John E. Boyd; Professor, Manor Jr. College, Jenkintown, PA (retired), November 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 6)


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