Sharpe’s Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
Written by Bernard Cornwell
Narrated by Paul McGann
4/5
()
Unavailable in your country
Unavailable in your country
About this audiobook
The seventeenth Sharpe novel sees Sharpe returning from India to London to join the newly formed Green Jackets in Britain.
Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
In this adventure, Sharpe is on his way home from India. He is sailing with the Royal Navy, who are hunting a formidable French warship, the ‘Revenant’, carrying a secret treaty that may prove lethal to the British.
The ‘Revenant’ makes it to the safety of the French and Spanish fleets off Cadiz, and it seems Sharpe’s enemies have found safety. Yet over the horizon is another fleet, led by Nelson, and Sharpe’s revenge will come in a savage climax when the two armadas meet on a calm October day off Cape Trafalgar.
Bernard Cornwell
BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of over fifty novels, including the acclaimed New York Times bestselling Saxon Tales, which serve as the basis for the hit Netflix series The Last Kingdom. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod and in Charleston, South Carolina.
More audiobooks from Bernard Cornwell
Agincourt: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vagabond: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51356: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heretic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fools and Mortals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gallows Thief: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stonehenge: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pale Horseman: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fallen Angels: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harlequin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Crowning Mercy: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uhtred's Feast: Inside the World of The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Sharpe’s Trafalgar
Related audiobooks
Sharpe's Triumph: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Escape: The Bussaco Campaign, 1810 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Devil: Napoleon and South America, 1820-1821 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Havoc: The Northern Portugal Campaign, Spring 1809 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Fortress: The Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October, 1805 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Tiger: The Siege of Seringapatam, 1799 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Assassin: Richard Sharpe and the Occupation of Paris, 1815 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Earl: The Anarchy Series Book 5 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Fury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Command Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Recollections of Rifleman Harris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stand by the Colours Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lords of the Nile: An epic Napoleonic adventure of invasion and espionage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Napoleon's Run: An epic naval adventure of espionage and action Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master of War: Gate of the Dead Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Emperor of Dust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Prey: The Expedition to Denmark, 1807 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Tom's Red Army Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Commando Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Turncoat's Drum Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Archer's War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Archers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Longsword Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men-of-War: Life in Nelson’s Navy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Land Divided Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Champion (II): Blood and Gold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Historical Fiction For You
Crooked House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Quiet on the Western Front Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Neon Gods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragon Teeth: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outlander Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Weyward: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Let Us Descend: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reformatory: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Clan of the Cave Bear Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Golem and the Jinni: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Apothecary: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rose Code: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tom Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alice Network: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Huntress: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Steps: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Eve Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Schindler's List Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That Bonesetter Woman: the new feelgood novel from the author of The Smallest Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rules of Magic: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House Is on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5News of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Yellow Wife: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Sharpe’s Trafalgar
24 ratings14 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This adventure is not as strong as other books in this series because of the pages devoted to the lengthy, clandestine shipboard romance occupying Sharpe's thoughts and action. When the battle begins at Trafalgar, Cornwell (and Sharpe) rise to their usual high standard or battle description and excitement.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Normally, I would like to read series in order, but in Cornwell' very popular Sharpe series, he is writing them out of chronological sequence, so that' impossible. This one takes place fourth sequentially, but is the most recent of seventeen to be published. Cornwell is prolific and a master storyteller.
The story opens with Sharpe in India, having been there several years but now about to return to England having joined up with the 95th Rifles. He' an ensign, a low ranking officer promoted out of the ranks. Being wise to the ways of crooks, he helps out an English naval officer who had been cheated out of several hundred pounds. Apparently it was the practice of travelers to bring their own furniture when traveling by ship and there existed a thriving business reselling furniture of those who had recently arrived from England and no longer needed the equipment they had used on the voyage.
The ploy was to sell the furniture, promising delivery to the ship before it left, then have the warehouse burn down and the owner ostensibly killed. In reality, he escaped, as did all the items in the warehouse, and the goods were then sold again by a cousin, both of the culprits making a tidy profit. As the first seller was supposed to be dead, there was no legal recourse. Sharpe sniffed out the plot and helped himself and the naval officer to recoup their money. Befriending Captain Chase, the naval officer, Sharpe finds himself on Chase's ship the Pucelle, a seventy-four, and in a chase after the Revenant a French warship carrying a spy back to France with some important information related to the India campaign.
Rake that he is, Sharpe soon is heavily involved with Lady Grace, wife of the haughty Lord Williams, sleeping with her ostensibly behind everyone's back. Lord Williams' secretary Braithwaite becomes aware of their involvement and Sharpe kills him, making it look as if Braithwaite had falling down a ladder. Sharpe would like to kill Williams, too, but apparently his conscience prohibits killing those higher on the social ladder. Grace is soon pregnant, but before an immediate resolution, the Pucelle and the Revenant, find themselves in the midst of the British and French fleets at Trafalgar. Cornwell is a master storyteller. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another good tale, well written, well researched.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the fourth book in the Sharpe series in internal chronology but was written almost a decade after the original books set during the Peninsular campaigns. In this book, Sharpe's been promoted to junior office rank and is on his way back to the UK to take up a position in the 95th Rifles. After having discovered a scam with the belongings he'd bought for the trip back home and helping out a Royal Navy captain who'd fallen foul of the same scam, Sharpe's on board an East Indiaman where he meets a man with an important future back home, that man's very beautiful and apparently cold wife and someone Sharpe had met under another name. The East Indiaman is taken by the French after being separated from the convoy she was travelling in and Sharpe is not looking forward to the impending imprisonment in Madagascar (though that cold wife proved not to be that cold after all...). By one of those strange twists of fate that make great books, Sharpe and the rest of the prisoners are rescued by a British Man-of-War and commanded by his friend. Sharpe is prevailed upon to travel home aboard the battleship as the captain chases the French ship, also heading to its home port. Evenly matched the two ships stay within sight for most of the journey but looks as if the French ship will beat Sharpe and his companions aboard the with details that would inflame India as the two powers vied for dominance throughout the world. but The two vessels reach Europe just as the pivotal naval battle of the next hundred years is about to be joined. This is a rollicking read and, as usual, Sharpe finds a woman to share his bed with while Cornwell once more blinds us with his research, though the best bits about the actual battle are to be found in the historical notes where Cornwell is very scathing about the French Admiral and his actions :-)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe’s Trafalgar is everything I’ve come to expect from Cornwell. And to me, this sanguine line says it all, “The good soldier was cock of a blood-soaked dunghill, and Richard Sharpe was good.” Our hero is once again caught and thrust into the middle of history and this time it’s one of the greatest naval battles of the 19th century. A must read and I will definitely be devouring the next edition soon enough.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nof feasible but a good Sharpe Story. That's what makes fiction so interesting
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In spite of the Economist's claim that Bernard Cornwell is "the direct heir to Patrick O'Brian," this book has less substance, although it certainly kept my interest. I'm also not happy with all of Mr. Sharpe's moral choices. But I learned a lot about living conditions on a ship---I wouldn't want to travel on one even first class---and how to prepare for a sea battle. Reading historical fiction means that you know in advance that Nelson will not survive; his telling Sharpe that he (Nelson) will have completed his life's work gives you the feeling that there were no more important naval battles after Trafalgar. (Not so, says my husband.) Nelson is portrayed as a holy man: he is totally present when he interacts with someone.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This one is a bit different from the other books in the series in that most of it takes place at sea. Sharpe is on his way back to England,having been based in India for some time. He sails on the Calliope under Captain Peculiar Cromwell.After several thrilling adventures he finds himself in the midst of the Battle of Trafalgar where needless to say, all hell breaks loose.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The actual battle is just the last bit of the book, which is fine. Sharpe has to take a ship back to England & Cromwell paints a logical picture of why Sharpe, an army soldier, would wind up in this battle. He admits he had no real business there, but it works well & gave me a visceral picture of life on board the ships of the time as well as covering this pivotal battle of the era.
Life on a ship of this time was rough. Sharpe, as an ensign, is in the perfect position to show us all aspects & there is quite a difference between what a crewman or steerage passenger can expect compared to the officers & rich passengers. The way fighting was handled was also covered completely. Horrifying is probably the only word that really covers the whole experience. Since Carnival Cruises have been much in the news, the comparison is obvious & provides a laughable counterpoint. Our expectations have come a long way in 2 centuries. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5OK, I'll admit, I've been putting off reading this one just because the very idea of it seemed ludicrous and forced to me. As has been very firmly established, our man Richard Sharpe is a daring, lucky and resourceful infantry officer. Infantry. The guy can barely ride a horse, but he's the devil in a red coat on foot. But see, Trafalgar was a naval battle. As in between ships. Admiral Nelson. Sailing maneuvers (or lack thereof: just go right at 'em). Ramming. Boarding parties. Being on the water.
So how could Sharpe have a Trafalgar that wasn't preposterous and contrived?
Answer: well, he can't: but the contriving minimizes the preposterousness and soon the reader forgets her pre-book scoffing altogether. After all, Richard does have to get from India back to England somehow, and we readers have already swallowed his just happening to be the unknown man who killed the Tippoo Sultan and the man who "really" found the way into Gawilgur.
Anyway, lesson well learned: always trust Uncle Bernard.
Speaking of things we learn, Sharpe's Trafalgar is also where we learn, not only that Sharpe has sea legs, but that he doesn't require the heat of battle to be a killer. Oh, we've had hints of this before, witness his attempt in the first book to feed his Wile E. Coyote nemesis to a tiger, but what we see in his shipboard relationship with his would-be blackmailer*, Mister Braithwaite, shows new depths of cold-bloodedness. Sharpe has never known an even-handed, just application of society's rules and laws, so he doesn't feel particularly bound by them. Dude.
And Sharpe has a lot to learn as well, here, for he has in the person of his friend Captain Chase (whom he rescued from a nasty crew on land in the novel's prologue) an example of leadership like he's not seen before. His Pucelle**, on which Sharpe finds himself after he's sort-of-rescued from a captured Indiaman, is a great big ship of the line, a floating artillery battery, and, that rarity of rarities, a happy ship. How does he do that?
"Sharpe watched Chase, for he reckoned he had still a lot to learn about the subtle business of leading men. He saw that the captain did not secure his authority by recourse to punishment, but rather by expecting high standards and rewarding them. He also hid his doubts."
From what I know about Sharpe's future with a rifle company in the Napoleonic wars (these novels have such cultural currency that it's almost as impossible not to know Sharpe's going to end up a lieutenant in Spain as it is not to know what Rosebud is), these are good lessons for him to be getting, very important for his transformation from a gutter rat whose first (chronological) scene in fiction is of him getting flogged to a man who inspires loyalty.
The scenes with Sharpe and Chase are also a nice antidote to the soap opera adultery plot that comprises more than half this book.*** Ugh.
But the real star here is the famous naval battle, into which the Pucelle more or less stumbles. Cornwell gives Patrick O'Brian a run for his ramming, gunning, sailing money here; one could fully imagine the Surprise being somewhere in the smoke (but of course we know it wasn't. Sillies. The Surprise was as real as... as the Pucelle!). The action is described in loving detail, with an emphasis on its chaotic nature, for we are seeing it from the perspective of an infantry soldier serving as an "honorary marine" who barely understands what's going on.
And yes, Cornwell succumbs to the temptation to substitute his fictional ship for the real one that rescued Admiral Nelson's flagship just as the French were about to board her, and also to the temptation to make Sharpe the person Nelson finds most interesting at his pre-battle breakfast. But I ask you: who wouldn't? Scenes such as those are a big part of why historical fiction is fun, if one isn't simply writing a fictionalized biography of an actual historical figure the way, say, Jean Plaidy does. But yes, I rolled my eyes a bit. But I was also smiling. It's a Sharpe book, after all.
It's just not the best Sharpe book. Hey, they can't all be.
Onward to Europe!
*Of course the blackmail is over a woman. Cornwell knows and respects the principle of Chekhov's Gun; if a pretty woman shows up in the first act of a Sharpe novel, Sharpe is going to become her lover, even if, as in this case, she is married to an obnoxious nobleman.
**"Pucelle" in English is "virgin." Ho ho!
**The other half, at least until the Pucelle stumbles across the battle at Trafalgar, is a chase plot. While Sharpe is schtupping the nobleman's wife in every unseen corner of the ship that isn't too disgusting, the ship is chasing a French one, the Revenant, to which Sharpe's frenemy and also a suspected spy jumped after it took the first ship that Sharpe and co embarked on, the Calliope. It's all very exciting and Patrick O'Brian-ish, and I would have much preferred it without all the tedious adultery, but I'm just sort of like that, you know? - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In 1805, Ensign Richard Sharpe is on his way back to England from India on board an East India Company fast merchant ship, the Calliope. Thanks to treachery, the ship is taken by a French warship, the Revenant. The captain of the Calliope joins the French cause--along with Sharpe's precious hoard of jewels. The Calliope is soon recaptured by the Pucelle, a 74 gun warship commanded by Captain Joel Chase of the Royal Navy, whom Sharpe rescued and befriended before leaving India. Because they believe that Revenant has as one of its passengers a dangerous French diplomat, the Pucelle gives chase over the Indian Ocean and into the Atlantic--in time to join Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson at Traflagar in one of history's most decisive naval battles. The Pucelle and the Revenant finally meet in a climactic struggle.I found the book, unlike its predecessors to be slow going in the beginning, due to a lack of immediate action. In addition, Cornwell uses Sharpe's ignorance, both as someone who has risen from the ranks and as a rather insignificant Army officer to explain the back story and the necessary information about ships and naval maneuvers. While believable, it becomes repetitious as a device and slows the story down. There are some very well done exceptions, such as the dinner held by the Calliope's captain for the upscale passengers in which the military and political positions of Napoleon, his allies and his enemies are well described.The chase of the Revenant is enlivened by a highly dangerous romance between Sharpe and the wife of an aristocratic diplomat. The consequences of such a liason between a member of the nobility and a commoner are nicely brought out in a variety of ways, such as attempted blackmail by the diplomat's jealous secretary. None of that stops Sharpe, of course, and he has far more success in the romantic line in this book than he has in previous ones, where that aspect at times seemed like an afterthought--stuck in the story because Sharpe should have a sex life.The high point of the story and the only reason for the book's existence is the Batttle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. Cornwell spends about a quarter of the book on it and does an outstanding job. We get a very good feel for Nelson himself and for the actual situation and his daring maneuvers. The description of the battle is superb. O'Brian did an excellent job of writing about the carnage of naval battles in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and Cornwell is just as adept if not more so. In his writing, Cornwell does not imitate O'Brian but has his own voice; we get a view of the chaos and death from a different angle, so to speak, and it is excellent. In fact, I think it is superior to O'Brian's writing in this respect and this respect only.The historical afterword is as usual excellent and has some nice irony in it.At the current time, I can't think of anyone who writes the historical action-adventure better than Cornwell does. The pace of the book picks up about the end of the first third of the book, and by the battle itself, it is so intense and so absorbing that I couldn't put the book down until I finished it. There's no better recommendation.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As I work my way chronologically through the Sharpe series, I find that this is my favorite so far. Sharpe always manages to land in the middle of the most dramatic historical events, rubbing elbows with the famous, despite his low station. After having served for years in India he is making his way home to join a new rifle unit. On the way he gets robbed, betrayed, engages in a transoceanic sea chase, engages in a clandestine love affair, gets invited to dinner with Lord Nelson and ends up in the Battle of Trafalgar. There he helps to save the day once again. Great fun.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I always wished that CS Forester would have allowed Horatio Hornblower to take part at Trafalgar, this'll have to do instead. Actually, Cornwell helps me out quite a bit with obscure naval terminology - since Sharpe is a novice we get much more explanation and definitions than Forester ever provides.Two gripes about this story. First, it takes quite a while for the action to heat up - but once it starts it doesn't stop . Nobody portrays brutal action better than Cornwell. Second, the whole subplot (I won't spoil it if you haven't read the book). It seems that Sharpe is, well sharp enough to get out of jams using methods other than what he resorts to here.I enjoyed the character of Captain Chase, his outgoing manner and easygoing way with underlings directly contrasts with Hornblower. I must say I think I like Chase better! Overall, a fine, if not outstanding work. Can't wait to see what trouble Sharpe gets into next!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5the machinery creaks a bit in this book. RS is at sea, and a number of co-incidences to get him to the battle are enormous. Not very believable. I may have been too kind in my ratings.