Lydia Bennet's Recommended Reading: Redcoat, by Richard Holmes

Gentle Readers, If Jane Austen's character Lydia Bennet could ever be tempted to read a book, then Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket, by Richard Holmes might just do the trick. Filled with pages and pages of the personal memories of hundreds of British soldiers between Georgian and Early Victorian times, it also includes letters and memories of the wives and women who followed them. Here is the publisher's description.

"Redcoat is the story of the British soldier - those noncommissioned men whom Kipling called "the backbone of the army" - from roughly 1760 to 1860. Based on the letters and diaries of the men who served and the women who followed them, this book is rich in the history of a fascinating era. Among the highlights are Wolfe's victory and death at Quebec, Wellington's Peninsular War, Waterloo, the retreat from Kabul, the Crimean War, and the Indian Mutiny." The focus of Redcoat, however, is on the individual recollections and experiences of the ordinary soldiers in the wars of Georgian and early Victorian England. Through their stories and anecdotes - of uniforms, equipment floggings, wounds, food, barrack life, courage, comradeship, death, love, and loss - Richard Holmes provides a comprehensive portrait of an extraordinarily successful fighting force. "

Oh la! She will certainly be fagged just by looking at the pictures of all those glorious men in redcoats!

If you would like to read more about the Bennet families scandalous youngest daughter Lydia, then check out Lydia Bennet's Story: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Odiwe which has just been released in a new international edition by Sourcebooks. You can also read two reviews of it from this blogs two co-author's Vic and Laurel Ann, and visit the author's web site devoted to Lydia's online journal.

posted by Laurel Ann, Austenprose