PS: For those who have come late to Richard Sharpe, the following quote from Trafalgar will give you a sense of his powerful character. Cornwell has devoted a substantial portion of his writing to such characters (see Uhtred of Bebbanburg in The Saxon Tales). Cornwell had enjoyed C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels, which depict a Royal Navy officer's career from midshipman to Admiral of the Fleet and retirement. When he could not find a similar series for the British Army, he decided to write it himself. As a further inducement, he had fallen in love with an American woman who, for various reasons, could not leave the United States, so he relocated. He could not get a green card or work permit, so he wrote the first Sharpe novel to make a living. 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. 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. 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!’

Following Napoleon's defeat, Sharpe ends up in Paris with the occupying allied armies. There he uncovers and defeats a secret Bonapartist group ( Sharpe's Assassin). Afterwards, he retires from the army.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. 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. Prior to the Battle of Waterloo, Sharpe is appointed aide to the Prince of Orange, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Disgusted by the Prince's dangerous incompetence during the course of the battle, Sharpe deserts his post (making an attempt on the prince's life afterwards), but comes to the aid of his old regiment, steadying the line and preventing a French breakthrough. Wellesley then gives him command of the unit for the remainder of the battle ( Sharpe's Waterloo).

After killing a gang leader during a fight over Maggie, he flees from London to Yorkshire at the age of fifteen. He works in a tavern in Sheffield. Within six months, Sharpe kills a second man, the landlord of the tavern where he is working, in a fight over a local girl.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.

And what an ending! The Battle of Trafalgar was incredibly written. My issues with some of the Sharpe series’ other battles was that we’ve felt a bit distant from them, but this was right in the heart of the action, in breathless descriptions and up-close combat. The brutality and violence was savagely portrayed. It got knee-capped a couple of times when Bernard insisted on giving Lord William Hale the most roll-eye ultra-villain monologue and trying to make me care what happened with Sharpe’s affair, but from the start of the battle to the boarding of the Revenant was amazing. Pucelle follows the French fugitive to a place called Trafalger. What follows is one of the most ferocious sea battles in European history, in which Nelson (and Sharpe) vanquish the combined naval might of France and Spain at Trafalgar. Retrieving and restoring the Imperial Family's treasure (in his note, Cornwell notes that several chests of personal belongings and riches did get lost in the chaos of the French defeat of 1814, but how this happened and their final fate are unknown)

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The series offers a compelling blend of action, adventure, romance, and intrigue that appeals to a wide range of readers.

Cromwell leaves the safety of a slow convoy with his fast ship. Lady Grace becomes worried that they are sailing near French-held Mauritius. She ends up spending the first of several nights with Sharpe. Malachi Braithwaite, Lord Hale's secretary, finds out and is angered, as he is attracted to Lady Grace too. Sharpe threatens to kill him if he tells anyone. Restored to rank of captain in the South Essex Battalion after successfully leading an unofficial forlorn hope to take the third breach of Badajoz and the death of several captains in the Battalion. 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. Sharpe is often portrayed as the driving force in a number of pivotal historical events. Cornwell admits to taking license with history, placing Sharpe in the place of another man whose identity is lost to history or sometimes "stealing another man's thunder." Such accomplishments include: His intelligence work for Wellesley brings him the long-lasting enmity of the fictional French spymaster Pierre Ducos, who conspires several times to destroy Sharpe's career, reputation or life.

How have the Sharpe novels influenced perceptions of the Napoleonic Wars and the British army during that time?