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Sharpe is described as "brilliant but wayward" in Sharpe's Sword, and he is portrayed by the author as a "loose cannon". He becomes a highly skilled and experienced leader of light troops. In contrast to the honourable Horatio Hornblower, the inspiration for the series, Sharpe is a rogue, an unabashed thief and murderer who has no qualms about killing a bitter enemy when the opportunity arises. However, he is protective of women in general and has a number of lovers over the course of his life. Killing Tipu Sultan and looting his corpse (the identity of the man who killed the sultan is unknown; like Sharpe, the soldier probably wished to remain anonymous because of the riches he acquired);
But Calliope is captured by a formidable French warship, Revenant. This French warship has been terrorizing British nautical traffic in the Indian Ocean. She races toward the safety of its own fleet, carrying a stolen treaty that, if delivered, could provoke India into a new war against the British. But help comes from an unexpected quarter. Sharpe's friend, Joel Chase, a captain in the Royal Navy, is on the trail of the Revenant. Sharpe comes aboard his 74-gun man-of-war, Pucelle along with Lady Grace and her husband. An interesting perspective on the Indian experience: ‘I’ve been five months in India,’ Chase said, ‘but always at sea. Now I’m living ashore for a week, and it stinks. My God, how the place stinks!’
Book Summary
Serves as lieutenant colonel in the 5th Belgian Light Dragoons (Dutch Army) led by the Prince of Orange during the 100 days. He later acts as colonel of his old regiment during the Battle of Waterloo. At the climax of the battle, he is given official command after Wellington says, "That is your Battalion now! So take it forward!" At the end of the war Wellington confirms his command, allowing Sharpe to retire from the army on a lieutenant-colonel's pension. A dazzling nautical adventure that finds Bernard Cornwell's beloved ensign Richard Sharpe in the middle of one of history's most spectacular naval engagements: the battle at Cape Trafalgar off the coast of Spain. Sharpe is born to a whore in the rookeries of London. Orphaned at an early age, he grows up in poverty. He is eventually taken in by prostitute (and later bar owner) Maggie Joyce and becomes a thief. He has to flee the city after killing a man to protect Maggie.
The Calliope 's passengers include the lovely, young Lady Grace Hale and her much older husband, Lord William Hale. Sharpe is also astonished to find aboard Anthony Pohlmann, a renegade and former Maratha warlord (defeated by Arthur Wellesley in Sharpe's Triumph), traveling under a false identity – Baron von Dornberg – but sees no reason to denounce his former foe.
Reader Reviews
After making their way to Portugal, and taking part in the Battle of the Douro, Sharpe and his surviving 30 riflemen are attached to the Light Company of the South Essex Regiment (a fictional regiment) as part of Wellesley's Peninsula Army. Some of the men Sharpe commands in the South Essex are: But nothing is uneventful in the life of Richard Sharpe, even at sea: the Calliope is captured by a formidable French warship, the Revenant, which has been terrorizing British nautical traffic in the Indian Ocean. The French warship races toward the safety of its own fleet, carrying a stolen treaty that, if delivered, could provoke India into a new war against the British -- and render for naught all that Sharpe has fought for so bravely till now. But help comes from an unexpected quarter. An old friend, a captain in the Royal Navy, is on the trail of the Revenant, and Sharpe comes aboard a 74-gun man-of-war called Pucelle in hot pursuit. After publishing eight books in his ongoing Sharpe series, Cornwell was approached by a production company interested in adapting them for television. The producers asked him to write a prequel to give them a starting point to the series. They also requested that the story feature a large role for Spanish characters to secure co-funding from Spain. The result was Sharpe’s Rifles, published in 1987, and a series of Sharpe television films staring Sean Bean. urn:isbn:0060770473 Republisher_date 20120305062602 Republisher_operator [email protected] Scandate 20120303181137 Scanner scribe14.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Source Unfortunately the "Revenant" makes it to safety by reaching the port of Cadiz to join the French and Spanish fleets, when all of a sudden Admiral Nelson is arriving with a mighty fleet.
During the earliest (chronological) books Sharpe is a private and later sergeant, and so his uniform and weapons largely are in line with Army regulations. His first sword and officer's sash are taken from the dead in the wake of the Battle of Assaye, although no specifics are given on the weapon. This is an excellent effort on Cornwell’s part and an excellent description of the Battle of Trafalgar that prevented Napoleon from wresting sea superiority from the Brits and forestalled the Emperor’s plans to invade England. But, this historical novel is beyond that a great entertainment of manners, romance, perfidy, and courage.
Media Reviews
The scenes with Sharpe and Chase are also a nice antidote to the soap opera adultery plot that comprises more than half this book.*** Ugh. Destroying the Army of Deserters and taking their leader "Marshal Pot-au-Feu" Deron captive (Cornwell notes that the historic Deserters' Army was finally destroyed by the French, though they did hand British deserters over, as shown in the novel); What is to follow is the momentous clash between the armadas of Britain against the French and Spanish on an October day, and what in the end will happen off Cape of Trafalgar is a victorious British fleet with Richard Sharpe right in the midst of it all.
Sailing with the Royal Navy, they are hunting the French warship, the "Revenant", and she carrying a secret to may prove helpful and lethal to the British. Reverted to the rank of lieutenant after his gazetting as Captaincy was refused by Horse Guards and in the absence of a vacant captain's position in the South Essex. Richard Share was a feral London boy before he joined the British army. In the time just before this book, he was sent to India to battle both indigenous peoples and other countries with imperial ambitions. He saves the life of an officer (who later will become Lord Wellington, hero of Waterloo) and is promoted from the ranks to ensign. This was a genius idea by Cornwell to write about one of the biggest battles of the era and to have Sharpe get in the middle of it in an organic way. The giant set piece at the end of this one did not disappoint, and Cornwell brought his trademark visceral battle writing full of every sensory detail you could imagine, savage fighting, death everywhere, and acts of grand bravery.Saving the Duke of Wellington from two assassination attempts in Paris (Cornwell explains that the first attempt happened, though the shooter simply missed, while the second is fictional and based on a likely deliberate fire that broke out in a house Wellington had been in days earlier). Sharpe serves four uneventful years as a sergeant. In 1803, he is the sole survivor of a massacre of the garrison of a small fort carried out by a turncoat Company officer, William Dodd ( Sharpe's Triumph). Because he can identify Dodd, Sharpe is taken along by McCandless on a mission to capture and punish Dodd, to discourage others from deserting. Their search takes them first to battles at Ahmednuggur and then Assaye. For many, such as myself, who appreciate the novels of Bernard Cornwell, that appreciation began with his novels of Britain during its wars with France that became The Napoleonic Wars. It was Cornwell’s intention to convey British history from the “ground floor” rather than “the eagle’s nest.” To that end, he created the character of Richard Sharpe, a London lad who joins the British Army and starts his career in India. The story opens with Sharpe in India, having been there several years but now about to return to England having joined up with the 95th Rifles. He' an ensign, a low ranking officer promoted out of the ranks. Being wise to the ways of crooks, he helps out an English naval officer who had been cheated out of several hundred pounds. Apparently it was the practice of travelers to bring their own furniture when traveling by ship and there existed a thriving business reselling furniture of those who had recently arrived from England and no longer needed the equipment they had used on the voyage.
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