No comments about Oscar and Bosie: A Fatal Passion.

No comments about Last Man Standing: The Memoirs of a Seaforth Highlander during the Great War.

2 comments about Lady De Lancey at Waterloo: A Story of Duty and Devotion.

1. Lord and Lady DeLancey married shortly before the Battle of Waterloo. While others were dancing at the Duchess of Richmond's ball on the eve of the battle, the DeLanceys remained in their hotel, hopefully in each other's arms. Once the trumpets are sounded, calling for all officers to return to their regiments, Lord DeLancey leaves his bride believing that she will make for the port of Ostend to return to England while he moves toward the front to face the reconstituted armies of Napoleon. But her gut tells her to turn back, which was a good thing, because she shortly received word that her husband was grievously wounded and was in a cottage near the battlefield. Lady DeLancey immediately went to her husband and stayed with him until he died three days later. This is a remarkable story, but even more so when you learn that the bride was only about 20 years old. Her ability to stay calm under such circumstances when armed men were walking outside her door and no one knew who had won the battle is a profile in courage. Most of the book is Lady DeLancey's own writings on what happened near Waterloo.



2. This is one of the best stories avaialable about Waterloo and its aftermath and it is from the wife of one of the officers in the battle. It is the true story of Madalene DeLancey's Week at Waterloo and I am forever indebted to David Miller who found this incredibly hard to find book and added footnotes and narrative detail to what was a very thin story.
   
   Madalene was encouraged to write this story much later - and so it is done from memory rather than diaries and letters, but the detail is extraodinary. It was shown to Charles Dickens who wept over it. Her writing is very moving. It lacks deliberate pathos and yet it is so moving. She had married only a few months prior to battle of Waterloo and her husband had been called to serve at the last minute, they arrived in Belgium just days before the battle began and her husband was immediately swept into the organisation.
   
   The army was called up on the 15th and marched to Ligny and Quatrebras where the first battles took place. Back in the town no one knew what was happening, the dithering, the panic, the rumours, the deserters galloping through town are all revealed in her narrative.
   
   The most gut-wrenching part is when she finds out her husband has been injured - she hears numerous stories rumours and half-confirmed details until she finally tracks him down, injured near the battlefield. She then must nurse him.
   
   I find myself crying even as I write this review. The story had such an enormous impact. Miller has done a fantastic job of providing detail to throw light on it, without detracting from its power.
   
   One of the best books I have read 5 stars +
   
   A Woodley

1 comments about Prisoners: The Civil War Letters of Ernie O'Malley.

1. This book is a collection of letters written by O'Malley after he had been shot (17 times) and lay convalescing and inprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol, during the Irish Civil War. Devoutly Anti-Treaty, O'Malley was perhaps the most articulate and thought-provoking writer the Wars produced. Although "The Singing Flame" and "On Another Man's Wounds" are better, this collection augments the information O'Malley has already left us and through letter writing, reveals more about O'Malley. Definitely worth getting.

No comments about Chronicles of the Tudor Queens.

No comments about An Aristocratic Affair.

No comments about J. M. W. Turner (Very Interesting People).

No comments about More Letters of Oscar Wilde.

No comments about Coming of Age in the Russian Revolution: Volume 4 (The Soviet Union at War, Vol 4).

No comments about The Gentleman Usher: The Life And Times Of George Dempster (1732-1818) : Member of Parliament and Laird of Dunnichen and Skibo.