Short Story Collections by Arthur Conan Doyle - Collections of Sherlock Holmes Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Brigadier Gerard (Paperback)

Chapters: Collections of Sherlock Holmes Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Brigadier Gerard, the Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, the Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 30. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Brigadier Gerard is the hero of a series of comic short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The hero, Etienne Gerard, is a Hussar in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Gerard's most notable attribute is his vanity - he is utterly convinced that he is the bravest soldier, greatest swordsman, accomplished horseman and gallant lover in all France. Gerard is not entirely wrong since he displays notable bravery on many occasions, but his self-satisfaction undercuts this quite often. Obsessed with honour and glory, he is always ready with a stirring speech or a gallant remark to a lady. Conan Doyle, in making his hero a vain, and often rather uncomprehending Frenchman, was able to satirise both the stereotypical English view of the French, and - by presenting them from Gerard's baffled point of view - English manners and attitudes. Gerard tells the stories from the point of view of an old man now living in retirement in Paris. We discover that he was born in Gascony in the early 1780s (he is 25 in "How the Brigadier Captured Saragossa"); in "How the Brigadier Rode to Minsk" he attends a review of troops about to depart for the Crimea (1854-5), and this is the last identifiable date in his life, although "The Last Adventure" has a still later setting, with Gerard about to return to his Gascon homeland. He first joins the 2nd Hussars - the Hussars of Chamberan - around 1799, serving as a Lieutenant and Junior Captain. He first sees action at Marengo in Italy in 1800. He transfers ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=6203898