[PB: Or have I previously made a page for novels? In which case, find and incorporate info.]
[PB: The author has posted some excellent commentaries (with maps, illustrations and photographs), covering e.g. the war, the battlefields, and real participants, on her website, LouiseBerridge.com.]
There is a new broom at Scotland Yard: Assistant Commissioner Nimrod Frost. His first 'little job' for Lestrade is to investigate the reported appearance of a lion in Cornwall, a savager of sheep and frightener of men; hardly a task for an Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department.
Having solved that case to his own satisfaction, Lestrade returns to London and to another suspicious death and then another. All old men who should have died quietly in their sleep. Is there a connection? Is there a serial killer at work?
Lestrade clashes with his superiors and finds himself suspended from duty, but that is a mere technicality as he moves from workhouse to royal palace, from backstage of the Lyceum to regimental dinner in his search for clues.
When can his glory fade?
'A romp it is - but Trow also has a serious side, which he shows in the first fifteen pages, giving us a sensitive historical account of the Light Brigade and the men who comprised it. Trow writes of the disastrous event with an empathy which makes this book even more exceptional.'
The Strand Magazine
Probably not about the Charge, in spite of the title, since the cover shows an infantryman:
1854. Newspapers report that war is imminent in the East as the Western powers quarrel with Russia over fragments of the crumbling Ottoman empire. Wanting to prove himself to a father who will not let him forget about his own self-proclaimed military glories, Officer Anthony Morgan is keen to set sail. Book. English. War stories. Published London: Harper, 2010.
"The historical fiction debut from former soldier, BBC defence correspondent and MP, Patrick Mercer, is a thrilling military action set during the Crimean War.
1854. War is imminent as the Western powers quarrel with Russia over fragments of the crumbling Ottoman empire. Wanting to prove himself to a father who will not let him forget about his own self-proclaimed military glories, Officer Tony Morgan is keen to set sail. Meanwhile, the Morgan's chambermaid, Mary, whom Tony loves but cannot marry, has wedded another officer in his company and will be accompanying the regiment to the front as a nurse.
Arriving at Sebastapol in the Crimea, the company's first engagement with the Russians fill the company with a short-lived confidence. Morgan is eager to show himself a worthy leader, but in the face of several bloody engagements which decimate the company, he finds himself shaken to the core by the brutality of war. He also has to quell potential mutiny against the cowardly subaltern Carmichael, whose first instincts are always to save his own skin. His romantic longings for Mary are revived after her husband is severely injured and she nevertheless proves herself a noble and brave addition to the company. Facing dire conflict on the battlefield and off, within his company and within himself, Morgan is going to be tested to the limits."
Praise for To Do and Die:
'A finely-drawn depiction of battle and the camaraderie of war.net acess' Daily Mail
'Mercer's prose is muscular yet silky smooth. His depiction of the experience of battle is unsurpassed.' Saul David, author of Zulu Dawn
'An excellent fiction debut. Any more please?' Military Illustrated
'Mercer creates colourful, believable characters that stay true to the dialect of the time, but remain recognisable to any modern soldier. Fans of Sharpe, Flashman or Matthew Hervey should enjoy this novel.' Soldier magazine
[PB: This should be found a proper home as a non-fiction retelling for children.]
[PB: Incidentally, Peck attributes the bleakness of Dickens's Little Dorrit [published in serial form 1855-7], which he says is so different from anything preceding it in D's works, to the impact of the Crimean War (see e.g. n.23 p.196). He calls it "the trigger for a new and gloomier vision". Possible? Was it significant to Darwin, too, since he had resisted publication, possibly on the grounds that it would offend devout Christians (particularly his wife)? Did the War make the idea of evolution by natural selection more thinkable? If so, how? How did Christians cope with the war?]
Although I have only made passing references to Little Dorrit, a case could be made that Dickens's novel was profoundly affected by the Crimean War. It is perhaps the first of his novels to abandon any hope of reform and renewal within society, and consequently, in the person of Arthur Clennam, features a hero who is rootless and alienated in the kind of way I have touched on in this chapter. Like Westward Ho!, it could be said to offer a vision of how exposed the individual is in a society where the old order has gone and there is very little confidence in the new liberal dispensation, the liberal notion of a productive mutual relationship between the individual and society. The Crimean War may well have provided the trigger for a new and gloomier vision for Dickens, just as it did for Kingsley.