Dead Men Telling Tales : Napoleonic War Veterans and the Military Memoir Industry, 1808-1914

Useless Males Telling Tales is an authentic account of the lasting cultural impression made by the autobiographies of Napoleonic troopers over the course of the nineteenth century. Specializing in the practically 300 army memoirs printed by British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese veterans of the Peninsular Conflict (1808-1814), Matilda Greig charts the histories of those books over the course of 100 years, round Europe and the Atlantic, and from writing to
publication to afterlife. Drawing on in depth archival analysis in a number of languages, she challenges assumptions made by historians concerning the reliability of those troopers’ direct eyewitness accounts, revealing the private and political motives of the authors and uncovering the big forged of characters,
from members of the family to publishers, editors, and translators, concerned in manufacturing behind the scenes. By together with literature from Spain and Portugal, Greig additionally offers a lacking hyperlink in present research of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, exhibiting how the style of army memoirs developed in another way in south-western Europe and led to starkly opposing nationwide narratives of the identical warfare. Her findings inform the historical past of a publishing phenomenon which gripped readers of all ages throughout
the world within the nineteenth century, made vital earnings for these concerned, and was basic in defining the fashionable ‘soldier’s story’.