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The White Company [Kindle Edition]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews) |
Print List Price: £10.99
Kindle Price: £0.00 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Product Description

Product Description

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

About the Author

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. Sent off to boarding school, he cut his teeth as a story-teller amusing his schoolmates with tales and writing letters home to his mother.He practiced medicine and, in 1900, volunteered as a medic in Africa during the Boer War - he was later knighted for his service. Doyle lost a son, two brothers in law, and two nephews to the Great War. He is remembered for the Sherlock Holmes stories and his novel The Lost World.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 500 KB
  • Print Length: 462 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1427037221
  • Publisher: Public Domain Books (1 May 1997)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B000JQV2KC
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,252 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By Rutan
Format:Kindle Edition
I already knew that the White Company was a historical band of English mercenaries at the time of the Hundred Years War, but wasn't sure what the author would make of them. The story is fast-paced, despite the sometimes flowery courtly language used by the protagonists and reads much like a travelogue, being the adventures of a young man brought up in a monastery but leaving to spend a year in the 'real' world before he decides how to live the rest of his life. The state of England in the 14th Century is brought vividly to life, though historians might well blanch at some of the details that Doyle adds. He is obviously influenced by the victorian beliefs about knightly chivalry, and his heroes tend to be characterised in a way that would not be out of place in a romantic Arthurian ballad, but are perhaps a touch too idealistic for the modern taste.

Having said that, 'The White Company' is certainly a page-turner. Scenes flash by entertainingly as the protagonist meets warriors back from France, becomes a squire to a famous knight, crosses the Channel to locate the eponymous mercenary company, and learns that for all his education at the hands of the Cistercians he has a lot to learn about the real world. Thoroughly recommended as a Victoran historical romance.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Mole TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
"The White Company" concerns a period of English history when knights were expected to lead men into battle, and much of this took place in France when the English Crown held sway over many major French cities.

The main character is a second son of a nobleman; and as might have been common at the time, had been placed into a religious order. He leaves to return home, and the descriptions of people and events he encounters on the way are detailed and give an insight into a world with different values and customs to those he is familiar with. He becomes associated to a knight and travels with him to join his men in the fighting taking place overseas; in the process, he learns more about himself and the wider world that he lives in.

The story is fast paced, and the characters are interesting and multi dimensional. Certainly far more so than I had expected, even given that this was written by Conan-Doyle, and this makes the book a pretty good read. It is not historically that accurate, but the language and scenes portrayed do give a good impression of what that period might have been like. Certainly one that's worth adding to the Kindle collection.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
OK 2 July 2011
By Graham R. Hill TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Conan Doyle reportedly preferred this to the Sherlock Holmes novels for which he is most famous. If true that simply shows that he wasn't a great judge of his own work because this is not a patch on either Holmes or for that matter the Brigadier Gerard stories. It's a pretty bog standard late Victorian adventure story based on contemporary ideals of chivalry rather than any sort of realism. The language employed is archaic - nobody ever says anything, they always quoth it - and any relationship to actual events seems entirely accidental; certainly it has nothing to do with the real 14th century band of mercenaries of the same name.

There is some interest to be had in spotting the literary references: Don Quixote for sure, the Chanson de Roland, Dumas (one of the characters is basically Porthos) and others. The book is episodic, presumably as a result of having been written as a magazine serial, and the lack of overall structure is noticable; Conan Doyle introduces many characters and subplots, and then abandons them, most often by giving a quick and violent end to the individual who is now surplus to requirements.

The politics are also of their time. He does display a bit of a social conscience about the treatment of peasants by the French nobility, but ducks the issue by saying that what is really needed is the type of paternalistic noblesse oblige practised by the English. In one notable scene the author manages to combine two of his great interests, the supernatural and the glory of 19th century British imperialism, into a scene about the historical figure of Bettrand du Guesclin. The fact that he carries it off is a measure of his abilities as a writer as are the frequent humourous set pieces for which the novel is much the better.
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