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It begins when he runs away from his apprenticeship and joins the army - or tries several times to join the army and ending up with the 40th Regiment of Foot (the closest) just before they set off for South America in 1806.
The book is just full of fascinating little detail of everyday life in the army - of transportation and some terrible (but brief) accounts of battles fought. In fact the book itself is very Brief - reminding me a lot of another published account by a non-officer - 'A Soldier of the 71st'. This gives a glimpse of life in the ranks. The editor, Eileen Hathaway, has done a phenomenal job footnoting the text so much of Lawrence's background and family is explained - and detail which might not be familiar in the Peninsular War - such as seige works - can be easily understood without specialist knowledge or dredging out other reference books. It also comes with a number of extremely useful small maps which illustrate small parts of the text - I really liked that feature. There are a number of black and white reproductions of pictures in the middle- I wish publishers would do these in colour - I'd be willing to pay the extra - they just look so drab, and it is hard to get enthusiastic about black and white reproductions of uniforms. Luckily the back cover has the 40th uniform reproduced in colour and I did like the watercolour on the front cover, which was painted especially for this book.
Lawrence is an engaging story teller - not quite in the self-deprecating vein of someone like John Kincaid - but he is enjoyable. There is a great amount of detail in here which complements other Peninsular War accounts - but it is also wonderful for London and British travelling - Lawrence's account of sharp practices by London Hackney Cab drivers and Inn land-ladies makes priceless reading.
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This is supposed to be the memories of Mrs. Shakespeare penned 7 years after her husband's death as related by the Author Mr. Robert Nye. Chapter 13 was the most honest when the Author/Writer states, "This was not a good chapter, but then it was number thirteen". That comment explains the 13th chapter but what about the other 74? Seventy-five chapters diced amongst 216 pages account for whatever this is supposed to be. Another chapter of note is The Dunghill Chapter, and while evidently not deserving of a chapter there are more than enough references, comments, descriptions, and actions involving Seagull waste to merit its own section.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? No thanks! That bit of brilliant repartee between Mr. And Mrs. Shakespeare is what passes for humor in this collection of badly penned memories formatted in some retched tribute to poetry/sonnets/whatever, who cares!
There are probably more books written about Shakespeare than any other individual. Pick one, anyone but this. No amount of pompous claims that you must be a connoisseur or of the most elite of experts on this man's work justify this trash. This is not clever, insightful, or witty. It is nothing.
Hopefully the paper will be recycled into something useful.
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