The Complete Brigadier Gerard Stories (Canongate Classics) [Paperback]

Of course I read every Sherlock Holmes story, but the works I like even more than the detective stories are his great historical stories. --Winston Churchill

Brigadier Gerard is, after Holmes and Watson, Conan Doyle's most successful literary creation.
--Julian Symons --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's reputation has been swallowed by that of his domineering offspring Sherlock Holmes. But, in one of the finest series of historical short stories in literature, Doyle created Brigadier Etienne Gerard, a marvelous hero set against a backdrop of the Europe of Napoleon.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was born in Edinburgh. Educated by the Jesuits at Stonyhurst, Doyle entered the medical school at Edinburgh University in 1876, working as a doctor's assistant at times to help pay the fees. He graduated in 1881 and, after Greenland and African voyages as a ship's doctor, went into practice at Southsea, Portsmouth. Conan Doyle had started to write while he was a medical student, and at twenty he had a story published in Chamber's journal. Sherlock Holmes first appeared in A Study in Scarlet (1887), and from 1891 he featured regularly in stories for the Strand Magazine. To replace Holmes, Conan Doyle created Etienne Gerard, a young French cavalry officer from the time of the Napoleonic Wars, whose memoirs were collected as The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard (1896) and its sequel, Adventures of Gerard. Knighted n 1902, Conan Doyle produced more than 60 books in the course of his career, including songs, poetry and historical fiction in the spirit of Scott. But his greatest literary achievement lay in his short stories, unrivalled in the mingling of character, action and atmosphere, whether Holmesian or Gerardine. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.