The White Company
The White Company is a historical adventure by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, set during the Hundred Years' War. The story is set in England, France and Spain, in the years 1366 and 1367, against the background of the campaign of Edward the Black Prince, to restore Peter of Castile to the throne of the Kingdom of Castile. The climax of the book occurs before the Battle of Nájera. Doyle became inspired to write the novel after attending a lecture on the Middle Ages in 1889. After extensive research, The White Company was published in serialised form in 1891 in The Cornhill Magazine. Additionally, the book is considered a companion to Doyle's 1905–06 Sir Nigel, which explores the early campaigns of Sir Nigel Loring and Samkin Aylward.
The novel is relatively unknown today, though it was very popular up through the Second World War. In fact, Doyle himself regarded this and his other historical novels more highly than the Sherlock Holmes adventures for which he is mainly remembered.
The White Company of the title is a free company of archers, led by one of the main characters. The name is taken from a real-life 14th-century Italian mercenary company, led by John Hawkwood.
Excerpted from The White Company on Wikipedia.
The White Company
Author | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
Country | United Kingdom |
Genre | Historical fiction, Adventure |
Copyright | Public domain worldwide. |
Book cover | - |
Ebooks | Project Gutenberg |
Scans | Google-digitized |
Audio | Librivox | Internet Archive Reader: Clive Catterall 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 |
Read online | The White Company |