The Myth of the Accidental Author

Dead Men Telling Tales ◽

10.1093/oso/9780192896025.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 118-142

Author(s):

Matilda Greig

Keyword(s):

Eyewitness Testimony ◽

Marketing Activity ◽

Peninsular War ◽

War Memoirs ◽

Soldier's Tale

This chapter explores the concept of soldiers as professional authors, confronting the enduring myth of ‘accidental’ military autobiography. In their prefaces, veterans of the Peninsular War frequently confessed their astonishment at having produced long, descriptive memoirs, professing not to have the slightest literary talent nor education, nor the least authorial ambition, claims that have largely been taken at face value by historians. Using evidence from publishers’ archives, this chapter reveals the immense editing, publishing, and marketing activity that in fact underlay the facade of the simple soldier’s tale. It shows the authors of many Peninsular War memoirs to have been actively involved in the publication of their books, knowledgeable about the industry, and eager for success in the literary rather than military world, raising questions for future historians about the tension between ‘authentic’ eyewitness testimony and edited accounts.

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Introduction

Dead Men Telling Tales ◽

10.1093/oso/9780192896025.003.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-22

Author(s):

Matilda Greig

Keyword(s):

Eyewitness Testimony ◽

Napoleonic Wars ◽

Starting Point ◽

Peninsular War ◽

History Of ◽

War Memoirs ◽

Soldier's Tale ◽

The Military

The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was one of the most colourful and brutal campaigns of the Napoleonic period. It prompted hundreds of veterans from the armies of the participating countries (Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France) to write and publish autobiographies about their experiences. These war memoirs are well-known to historians as rich and compelling sources, but relying on them for direct eyewitness testimony about the experience of war poses significant methodological problems. Military memoirs, including those from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, tend to be written in hindsight and shaped to an unknown extent by selective or traumatised memory. They may be unrepresentative of the majority of experiences, written in very different styles and formats, published immediately after the war, or only made public decades after the author’s death. Taking these challenges as a starting point, this introductory chapter lays out a new methodological framework for ‘what to do with war memoirs’, including considering closely the identities and motives of the authors, tracing the material histories of the books themselves, and employing a comparative, transnational approach to the history of the military memoir genre. It also summarises the relevant historiography, emphasising the lack of attention so far given to Spanish and Portuguese wartime autobiography, and the long-term importance of Peninsular War memoirs as a precedent for the twentieth-century ‘soldier’s tale’.

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Circulation and Transnational Memory

Dead Men Telling Tales ◽

10.1093/oso/9780192896025.003.0008 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 188-215

Author(s):

Matilda Greig

Keyword(s):

Shared Memory ◽

The United States ◽

British History ◽

French History ◽

Spanish History ◽

War Of Independence ◽

International Scope ◽

Peninsular War ◽

War Memoirs

This final chapter examines the international scope of the Napoleonic war memoir genre. Widespread and often illegal practices of reprinting and translating veterans’ autobiographies ensured that narratives of the Peninsular War circulated extensively across borders throughout the nineteenth century, not only within Europe but also across the Atlantic, to both the United States and Latin America. Peninsular War memoirs became a transnational genre, crossing national and linguistic divides. This did not, however, result in a peaceful shared memory of the war. Instead, the reprinting and translation of memoirs was unequal, with Spanish accounts rarely reaching British and French audiences, and hostile, with foreign soldiers’ tales being severely edited and disputed by translators. This nationalistic reaction to the circulation of military memoirs laid the foundations for enduring grand narratives about what is in British history the Peninsular War, in French history the War in Spain, and in Spanish history the War of Independence.

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War Heroes and Pacifists on the Same Front: Re-reading Heroism in Two Imperial War Memoirs

Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses ◽

10.14198/raei.2012.25.24 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 351

Author(s):

Cristina Pividori ◽

Andrew Monnickendam

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

World War ◽

World War One ◽

The Subject ◽

War Memoirs ◽

Soldier's Tale ◽

Indian Mutiny ◽

Traditional Construction ◽

Do So

This article explores the notion of heroism in Victorian war literature by analyzing the figure of the soldier-hero in two imperial war memoirs: Captain Mowbray Thomson’s The Story of Cawnpore: The Indian Mutiny and John Pearman’s The Radical Soldier’s Tale. While The Story of Cawnpore is an emblematic example of what we call the Victorian hero myth, that is, the effective merging of traditional heroism, war as adventure and imperialism in mid-to late-nineteenth century Britain – The Radical Soldier’s Tale appears to posit an alternative to this widely accepted view, challenging its assumed universality and immutability. By analyzing Pearman’s innovative revision of heroism, in contrast to Thomson’s more conventional representation of the theme, this article attempts to illustrate both the traditional construction and a possible re-reading of the subject taking place in the same period. In order to do so, we focus on the three main aspects around which the representation of the nineteenth-century soldier-hero is articulated: the consolidation of traditional heroic manhood in the context of imperial war, the complex social justification of war and the demonization of the Other as a way of validating the heroic self. Particular attention is given to the fact that Pearman’s shift towards a more complex appreciation of the heroic subject appears to anticipate similar patterns occurring in the literature written during and after World War One.

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Dead Men Telling Tales

10.1093/oso/9780192896025.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Matilda Greig

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Western Europe ◽

Napoleonic Wars ◽

Cultural Impact ◽

National Narratives ◽

The World ◽

Peninsular War ◽

History Of ◽

Soldier's Tale ◽

Multiple Languages

Dead Men Telling Tales is an account of the lasting cultural impact made by the autobiographies of Napoleonic soldiers over the course of the nineteenth century. Focussing on the nearly three hundred military memoirs published by British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese veterans of the Peninsular War (1808–1814), it charts the histories of these books over the course of a hundred years, around Europe and the Atlantic, and from writing to publication to afterlife. Drawing on extensive archival research in multiple languages, the book challenges assumptions made by historians about the reliability of these soldiers’ direct eyewitness accounts, revealing the personal and political motives of the authors and uncovering the large cast of characters, from family members to publishers, editors, and translators, involved in production behind the scenes. By including literature from Spain and Portugal, it also provides a missing link in current studies of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, showing how the genre of military memoirs developed differently in south-western Europe and led to starkly opposing national narratives of the same war. The book’s findings tell the history of a publishing phenomenon which gripped readers of all ages across the world in the nineteenth century, made significant profits for those involved, and was fundamental in defining the modern ‘soldier’s tale’.

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Conclusion

Dead Men Telling Tales ◽

10.1093/oso/9780192896025.003.0009 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 216-220

Author(s):

Matilda Greig

Keyword(s):

Publishing Industry ◽

Active Role ◽

Key Points ◽

Peninsular War ◽

History Of ◽

Material History ◽

War Experiences ◽

War Memoirs ◽

Modern War

This concluding chapter provides a summary of the key points made in the book. It emphasises that a new methodology is needed for analysing Napoleonic war memoirs, and indeed war memoirs in general, one which includes a closer consideration of the active role of veterans as authors, the material history of the book, and a comparative, transnational approach. Seen through these lenses, Peninsular War veterans’ autobiographies and the commercial publishing industry that developed around them over the nineteenth century are responsible for shaping the modern war memoir, and for laying the foundations for the mass popular appeal of tales of soldiers’ war experiences today.

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HABITS OF SEDUCTION: ACCOUNTS OF PORTUGUESE NUNS IN BRITISH OFFICERS' PENINSULAR WAR MEMOIRS

The Historical Journal ◽

10.1017/s0018246x14000569 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 58 (3) ◽

pp. 733-756 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

JENNINE HURL-EAMON

Keyword(s):

Travel Literature ◽

Life Writing ◽

The Political ◽

Military Life ◽

Cultural Climate ◽

Peninsular War ◽

War Memoirs

ABSTRACTIn their published memoirs of the Peninsular War, a surprising number of British officers mentioned visits to Portuguese convents and openly confessed to having flirted with the sisters – occasionally to the point of outright seduction – and abandoned them when the regiment moved on. This seems like a very negative self-fashioning to modern readers, but can best be understood in the context of the political and cultural climate in which these memoirs were produced. This article argues that officers' descriptions of convent visiting and their professions of sympathy for cloistered women revealed the influence of gothic, erotic, romantic, and travel literature on military life writing. Their depiction of nuns differed from nuns’ portrayal by common soldiers due to its infusion with masculine ideals of chivalry and sensibility. Elite memoirists saw no need to justify their abandonment of nuns because they viewed it in light of other literary accounts of soldiers who broke nuns’ hearts. At the same time, they contrasted themselves with the barbarism of the French, believing themselves to be far more compassionate and tolerant of Catholic strictures. Officers’ portrayals of Portuguese sisters can thus also be seen as an expression of Britons’ sense of their relationship with Portugal in the war.

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Scribblomania

Dead Men Telling Tales ◽

10.1093/oso/9780192896025.003.0006 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 145-161

Author(s):

Matilda Greig

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Napoleonic Wars ◽

Reading Public ◽

Sherlock Holmes ◽

Peninsular War ◽

Arthur Conan Doyle ◽

War Memoirs

The end of the Napoleonic Wars coincided with a phenomenal rise in the number and variety of war memoirs being written by veterans of all ranks, yet historians have mostly argued that these books made little impact on the general reading public. This chapter overturns that idea. It uses research into publishers’ archives, library catalogues, and later editions of Peninsular War memoirs to demonstrate that these soldiers’ tales sold well, made significant profits for their editors and publishers, and became increasingly imitated and parodied as the nineteenth century went on (including by Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle). It argues that these books should be seen as part of a commercial genre of war writing, with the curated representations of conflict they contained being deliberately marketed to different readers via cheap or luxury editions, illustrations, and decorative bindings.

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Editors and Afterlives

Dead Men Telling Tales ◽

10.1093/oso/9780192896025.003.0007 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 162-187

Author(s):

Matilda Greig

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Military Education ◽

World War ◽

Women Editors ◽

The First World War ◽

Peninsular War ◽

War Memoirs ◽

The Many ◽

First World ◽

Over Time

This chapter reveals the complex afterlives of Peninsular War memoirs, many of which outlived their authors and continued to be published and re-published in different formats over the long nineteenth century. It considers the many different groups of people involved behind the scenes in the production of a Napoleonic military memoir: family members, especially women; editors; publishers; indexers; printers; illustrators; archivists; lawyers; even luxury booksellers. It shows in detail the alterations that were made to veterans’ autobiographies over time, from omitting or adding sections of text to changing the title, inserting portraits of the author, or commissioning artist’s impressions of his battles. Along the way, some war memoirs underwent an almost total transformation, becoming dry family biographies, ‘boy’s own’ adventure stories, regimental histories, consumer objects, or, in the decades before the First World War in Britain and France, tools for national military education, targeted to children.

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