Sharpe's Waterloo by Bernard Cornwell. Harper Collins £ 15.99 Hd/Bk ISBN 0 00 2236435. Written in 1990 this book gallops along in the usual Sharpe fashion. A Lt. Colonel now, he still carries a Baker rifle and the famous "heavy sword" and Harper has returned from being a horse coper in Ireland to be with his friend. It's a kind of "Roy of the Rovers" version of Waterloo with Sharpe being so disgusted with His Highness Prince William's waste of soldiers lives that he tries to murder him (with the Baker rifle of course.) "Slender Billy" was actually wounded during the battle. There's some stirring writing but too much gratuitous gory descriptions for my taste.

An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer. Pan Books (About £ 5 p/bk.) (My copy was 6/-!) [This is very old UK currency now defunct]. First written in 1937 this "Faction" novel has gone on being reprinted nearly every year since, sometimes twice a year. Mrs. Heyer consulted more than 45 sources - many of them primary - Baron Müffling, Sir Harry Smith, Capt. Gronow, John Kincaid, Sgt. Maj. Cotton and others who were actually there, and good secondary sources like Oman, Maj. A. Griffiths and Muriel Wellesley. It's basically a love story interwoven with battle. It's quite easy to leave out the fiction characters and concentrate on the factual. Lord Wellington only says what he was recorded as saying for instance. I think it's a much better book than Cornwell's and the historical setting is done better. You have to get used to the Regency mode of speech however.

Finally Wellington: The Years of The Sword by Elizabeth Longford. Panther p/bk. First Published 1969. This is actually the second volume of a 2 volume biography of Wellington. The battle is very fully treated pp. 475 - p592. The Sunday Times said "a description of Waterloo which must rank among the finest written yet." Her references and bibliography run to 35 pages at the end! Not at all dry, she makes Wellington appear as a man - which is what he said he was - "… What is a great General more than anybody else?" We're still speaking English (with local accents, I hope) because of Arthur Wellesley* and the men he led. A great read and a history book. Any fiction it contains is because the winners wrote it - like all history. * He was born Wesley but the family's original name was Wellesley. Changed 1798.

More Bookcase reviews:

Three Waterloo Books
Scenarios for All Ages
Guide to Battlefields of Britain
Military History of the Last Jacobite Rising
Osprey: King George's Army 1740-93 (1-3)
Edgehill 1642