Cornwell describes military action brilliantly. He evokes all the sights and sounds and smells while managing to describe the fluctuations of the battle with enough vim to keep you in suspense...The Sharpe novels are wonderfully urgent and alive.' Daily Telegraph One of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, Hedy Lamarr also designed a secret weapon against Nazi Germany.

This tale is mainly set in the year AD1815, right after the Battle of Waterloo, and it ends with an epilogue that is set in AD 1816. As a child, Cornwell loved the novels of C.S. Forester, chronicling the adventures of fictional British naval officer Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic Wars, and was surprised to find there were no such novels following Lord Wellington's campaign on land. Motivated by the need to support himself in the U.S. through writing, Cornwell decided to write such a series. He named his chief protagonist Richard Sharpe, a rifleman involved in most major battles of the Peninsular War.I didn’t see a way into that little story until I met my real father’ ... Bernard Cornwell. Photograph: Felix Clay 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. There is a fanatical priest who will stop at nothing, including murder, to make Spain free of both the French and the British. There is also the French officer who has his own twisted criteria of warfare who Sharpe has vowed to hunt down and put down. A previous review I've read here made reference to this entry in the series feeling like three separate novellas. I can see what the reviewer is saying, and I have to say, I agree in part. Sharpe, Harper and gang become involved in espionage on the part of a woman who is swiftly forgotten, they engage in a light piece of siege-breaking, and then become embroiled in one of the key battles of the Napoleonic Wars as a sort of interested group of active spectators. The plot is not why we're here, and that's something of a shame, as this is usually a strength of Cornwell's work.

So Sharpe is spearheading the main army towards Paris, but has to break the journey for the “minor” impossible task of taking a castle and freeing an important prisoner. Once in Paris, he finds a very different mission and struggles to know who to trust in a city whose citizens have just lost a critical battle. And in Paris, there is danger around every corner, but then Sharpe has history as a street fighter…. Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of British soldier Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series featuring Sean Bean in the title role.Taking command of a regiment in driving off the advance of the French Imperial Guard at the Battle of Waterloo (the regiments who actually held off the Imperial Guard are in the novel as well); The biggest of these being: The best form of revenge (for want of a better word) is to live your best life and be happy. Cornwell starts writing at around six in the morning and works through until five, only stopping for lunch and a dog walk. “As long as I’m alive I’m sure I’m going to want to go on writing,” he says. “Though part of me dreads the thought of starting another series. I mean, I’m 76! And I’d have to do 10 books – that takes me to 86, and it’d be a pity to start a series and not finish it.

Sharpe and Harper's companionship continues to be a series highlight, but probably my favorite interactions in this one came between Sharpe and Arthur Wellesley the Duke of Wellington. Cornwell has always had a grand time writing Wellington, and his and Sharpe's awkward but respectful relationship has always been amusing and special for me to follow.

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. This Sharpe novel I thoroughly enjoyed and it felt like a proper journey, one guided by duty and lust and revenge. It was quite pleasing to meet Lord Pumphrey again and I enjoyed the dynamic between the pair of them, though that seems to be at an end due to a certain revelation. Guess who gets to try to buy, steal or destroy those letters? Hint: one of them carries around a non-regulation sword and rose up from the ranks; another carries a seven-barreled volley gun and actually gets to use it a bit. And, you know, the rest of their friends.

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); 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. 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. Richard Sharpe is born in London circa 1777 (he believes that he may be 22 during the early months of 1799) to a prostitute residing in "Cat Lane" and possibly a French smuggler. When Sharpe is three, his mother is killed in the Gordon Riots. Over there Sharpe will find more enemies than friends within the Spanish, and so necessary will need to be taken by Sharpe to secure Cadiz for the British for the time being.

This book had that same Sharpe formula, though the 'bad guy' did not lose his life in the end. A man who at first disliked Sharpe and mistrusted his judgement, soon learns he is a capable - if somewhat violent - man of action. There was a pretty woman belonging to another man (or who belonged to herself but for money could be whatever you wanted), who Sharpe then slept with (though I thought the "darling" part was a tad uncomfortable to read - that man seems to turn to mush when confronted with a female), who then left him for a richer man. As with Sharpe, The Last Kingdom has been lapped up by television, moving from the BBC to Netflix in recent years, with a fifth series due to start filming later this month, coronavirus notwithstanding. During the early years of the Peninsula Campaign, Sharpe's affections are torn between a Portuguese courtesan, Josefina LaCosta, and the Spanish partisan leader Teresa Moreno ( Sharpe's Eagle, Sharpe's Gold). Teresa bears Sharpe a daughter, Antonia ( Sharpe's Company), in 1811, and marries Sharpe in 1812, but is murdered a year later by Sharpe's longtime enemy, deserter Obadiah Hakeswill ( Sharpe's Enemy). Sharpe leaves his daughter to be raised by Teresa's family, and, as far as is known, never sees her again. Over the same period, Sharpe also has affairs with an English governess, Sarah Fry ( Sharpe's Escape); Caterina Veronica Blazquez, a prostitute who has beguiled Henry Wellesley, Sir Arthur's brother ( Sharpe's Fury); and the French spy Hélène Leroux ( Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Honour). the first part is a completely fictitious fort assault that only serves to set up Sharpe's rival/grudge with a French coronel Vandal his fury after their first meeting is the reason for the title. this subplot never connected or worked for me. 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.