The Adventures Of Gerard

By Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Book Overview

Jerzy Skolimowski's 1970 British-Italian-Swiss comedy-adventure The Adventures of Gerard features Peter McEnery, Claudia Cardinale, Eli Wallach, and Jack Hawkins. It was based on Arthur Conan Doyle's 1896 collection The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. During the Napoleonic Wars, vain and arrogant French brigadier Etienne Gerard served. He plans to demonstrate why he is the greatest soldier and lover to have ever lived. A collection of eight short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventures of Gerard (The Adventures of Gerard in some versions) was first released on September 22, 1903, by George Newnes Ltd. From August 1902 through May 1903, these short pieces were first published in The Strand Magazine. The book is organized into parts that cover various periods of his life as a soldier serving under Napoleon, as well as his individual achievements and the romance that swept him off his feet in between. Some of the stories show bloody encounters with his foes and how he managed to flee those encounters, as is typical of combat stories. Even if the woman he encountered along the road is from their enemy, there were tender moments.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9357276343
• ISBN13: 9789357276344
• Release Date: January 2023
• Publisher: Double 9 Books
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Gallic Flashman, without the self-deprecating wit (quelle suprise!!)

What we have here is a collection of eight stories purportedly written about a Colonel of the Hussars in Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armee. His stories take us from the Spanish battlefields of the Penninsula campaign, through Russia (and the retreat), the Battle of Waterloo, and a fanciful failed rescue of L'Emporer from St.Helena. THese are stories of dashing doo and have all the Doyle hallmarks of Honor and Gentle-Manliness. One has to keep in mind that these stories were written eighty to one hundred years after the actual battles. Many of the people he wrote about, had been known to people of his parents age. So that Doyle had great insight into how these people thought and acted. The reading (I listed to the tape read by Bolen) of the stories prevents me from commenting on the character of Etienne Gerard. Some of the comments are very drole and may be Doyles way of making the Colonel less conceited that he comes off on tape. As it is, he has little of Flashy's insight into luck and cowardice and is totally consumed by his own abilities (very french indeed). The Flashman suceeds often in spite of himself (and is the first to admit it), Gerard always suceeds because he is the best swordsman, the best horseman, the greatest......(fill in the blank). The stories are worth reading for their marvelous description of the life of the cavalry in the early nineteenth century, and the romanticism of that time at the fin de siecle.