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Summary: This book is a Triumph both for Sharpe and Cornwell.
Review: In this latest chapter in the life of Richard Sharpe, Bernard Cornwell takes us back to 1803 and Sharpe's life as a seargent in Wellsley's army. In Triumph, Cornwell gives readers more of the great historical fiction they have come to expect, while showing them a different side of Richard Sharpe. Having already written the end of the series, chronologically, Cornwell does a masterful job of showing us the young Richard Sharpe and relating experiences that help shape this character into the bold rifleman we know him to be. As always, the battle descriptions are excellent, and the attention to detail, within the fictional context, makes it all the more fascinating. Sharpe readers may find this book a little different than the others in the series in that a good portion of the book does not specifically involve Sharpe. I would recommend this book to any Shape reader and I would also suggest ordering Sharpe's Fortress, currently out in Britain, from Amazon.comUK. Once i found out these books were available in England I just couldn't wait to get them.
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Summary: Back Again
Review: Most of the Sharpe books I had read over a very short interval and the Cornwell formula started to get too dreary and predictable. Having not seen Sharpe for quite awhile and getting reacquainted with Sharpe again in this book was a real pleasure. The formula works and works well! As usual I read it a furious pace to keep up with the action. Just great!
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Summary: Wonderfully pivotal novel in the Sharpe series.
Review: Now a Sergeant, Richard Sharpe finds himself feeling something like ambition to rise in the British Army. Despite his excellent fighting abilities, Sharpe is destined to languish in the British ranks. Despite this, he is happy, his job is easy and his hidden fortune makes him able to live better than some officers. However, it is almost impossible for a British soldier to become an officer unless he performes an act of suicidal bravery in front of an influential officer. As an aide to a member of the East India Company military, Sharpe seems unlikely to ever have his chance. But fate intervenes and just as the battle of Assaye begins Sergeant Sharpe finds himself as an aide to Arthur Wellesley, commander of the British forces at Assaye. When Wellesley is unhorsed and surrounded it is up to Sharpe to save him and claim his destiny. Cornwell continues to explore the background of his classic character. Readers of the initial Sharpe series have heard about Assaye, but here it finally is in all its bloody glory. Corwell is among the most realistic of combat novelists and his battle descriptions are as good as any history book. Well done Mr. Cornwell.
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Summary: Young Sharpe is maturing--
Review: On a Richard Sharpe timeline this is the second volume in the series , but not in the order of publication. This is also the second of the novels to take place in India.The year is 1803 and Sergeant Richard Sharpe is an assistant in the armory at Seringapatam ; his malevolent mortal enemy Obadiah Hakeswill is plotting his revenge ; Arthur Wellesley's army is preparing to move against the armies of the Mahratta confederation. All of the elements are in place for a great tale from Bernard Cornwell , and the reader is not to be disappointed! The tale's start has Sergeant Sharpe lying wounded at a East India company outpost which has been treacherously attacked by a renegade officer , Lieutenant Dodd , leading a company of sepoy deserters. Sharpe manages to survive the massacre and reports the events to the kindly Scottish Colonel McCandless , the chief of Wellesley's intelligence service. McCandless , accompanied by Sharpe , sets after Dodd ,now a Major in Colonel Anthony Pohlmann's compoo ( an Indian version of a regiment) , a component of the Mahratta leader Scindia's army. Meanwhile Obadiah Hakeswill has schemed against Sharpe and has obtained an arrest warrant to aid in his plot to destroy and rob our hero of his riches obtained in "Sharpe's Tiger". All of these elements come together at the obscure Indian village of Assaye--the scene of Arthur Wellesley's greatest military triumph. In the course of the battle , Sharpe is commissioned an Ensign by Wellesley , and the career of Richard Sharpe set in motion. This is one of the very best battles in all of the Sharpe novels I have read so far (I am up to eleven to date); probably the best of the three "Indian Chronicles" .
Highly recommended , and very entertaining. Five stars.
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Summary: Sharpe's Famous Deed -- Finally Explained
Review: Readers of Cornwell's Sharpe series have long been tantalized by references to infantry Sergeant Sharpe being raised (promoted) from the ranks of the enlisted men to the gentleman's officer corps by Lord Wellington in gratitude for having saved his life on the battlefield at Assaye in India, back in 1803. In this volume, we finally get the full story behind that seminal event in Sharpe's career, one that is mentioned in every volume in the series. At the time, a number of Indian princes (the Mahratta confederation) had banded together to resist further British incursion into their territory, and assembled a massive army of European-led units along with local and Arab mercenaries. As in many of the other books, Sharpe is sent on a small mission and ends up meeting the main villain of the piece, here a renegade English officer who is part of the Mahratta forces. Sharpe is later detailed to help capture the rogue officer, leading him to Wellington's first major set piece battle, at Assaye. And while the book is ostensibly a Sharpe book, it is this battle which Cornwell is clearly most interested in, and with good reason. In defeating an army some 10-20 times its number and equal equipment, Wellington's victory is one the great feats of military history (one which he ranked above his more famous win at Waterloo). Cornwell's recreation of the battle makes it eminently clear that two Scottish Highlander regiments (the 74th and 78th won the day for the British. Many of the usual Sharpe elements are there, bloody fighting, foul villains (including the odious Sgt. Hakeswill), treachery, and climactic massive battle. What's more interesting about this book, however, is how different this younger Sharpe is from the scarred veteran we meet in the Peninsular Wars. He has yet to be in a real battle, and is clearly tentative and bewildered by the fog of battle. He's on his own, with no men of his own to command, and without a sidekick to add any dram of levity to the tale (although the dour, Bible-thumping, vegetarian, Scottish Colonel he's attached to is a somewhat comic figure at times). There is a woman he beds, but she's much more peripheral to the plot compared with the ladies of Spain and Portugal Sharpe later encounters. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is when he is tempted by the offer to become an officer in the Mahratta army, with men to command, and riches to follow. He is clearly wavering but his true dream is to be able to return to his gutter origins wearing a British officer's uniform, the only one that counts.
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Summary: Richard Sharpe in India again
Review: Readers of the Sharpe series of books have been given tantalizing hints of how our intrepid hero rose from the enlisted ranks to that of a commissioned officer in Wellington's army. This book, at last, tells the tale, and an exciting one it is! Cornwell is an excellent writer, with an eye for even the smallest detail. His description of the battle of Assaye is, in my mind, the finest portrayal of any Napoleonic-era fight that I have ever read. The book has a lot of virtues; strong characterization, good plot, etc., but the battle scenes alone are worth the reading! All true Sharpe fans will love this work.
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Summary: Sharpe pulls the sword out of the stone
Review: Sharpe's Triumph describes the seminal event that gave birth to what is the dominant theme of the 19-book Sharpe series. By rescuing his commanding officer and then being rewarded with a commission, our "son of a common whore" begins his rise into the officer ranks, where he has to deal with the disdain of the aristocrats and the distrust of the soldiers. Cornwell has created a deeply complex character in Sharpe. He's caught between the rock of his ambition to be more than a foot soldier and the hard place of an officer corps that is less than welcoming to someone from the gutter. Before Assaye, Sharpe was never totally happy, but after his triumph, readers will see surliness become his dominant mood. He's growing into the scarred, mean-tempered officer of the Peninsula campaign. A final note about Cornwell's description of the Battle of Assaye, which Wellington called his greatest victory. There's almost a surreal quality to it. Whereas Wellington was always outnumbered when fighting the French later, here there are suicidal odds against him, 20 to 1 by some reckonings. I kept expecting him to break off the engagement, but he never did until he'd won the field. It feels like three or four of your buddies and you are taking on the college football team. As a result, there's an intimate quality to the undertaking. With so few troops under his command, you understand how Wellington could control the battle as well as he did. And the fact that he would personally lead a charge against a battery makes sense. It's like seeing a great band at a small college hangout years before they are doing stadium tours. In some Sharpe stories, he's the center of the action; in others, he's just one exciting part of a larger story. Sharpe's Triumph belongs to the latter category. It's a tribute to Cornwell that he can write both types so well. This is the book where we see that Cornwell's inspiration for writing about the Napoleonic Wars was at least partially the fascinating figure of the Duke of Wellington.
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Summary: Try it, you might like it...
Review: Sharpe`s Triumph is set in India around 1803. Richard Sharpe is a Sargent in one of the latest of the series by Bernard Cornwell. In this book he meets his ruthless enemy again, Sargent Oberdiah Hakeswill, who is intent on ruining Sharpe`s career and life, but Sharpe has other amitions and fulfills them in an act of suicidal bravery at the battle of Assaye, where he saves the life of the then Major-General Authur Wellesley, who was soon to become the famous Duke of Wellinton. I really enjoyed this book because it is of the usual high standard that Bernard Cornwell insists on working in, and that is a good thing. I think that people who enjoy Bernard Cornwell`s books would definately enjoy this book, the only regrets that I have about this book are that there was no cheerful, grinning Sargent Harper (see Sharpe`s Rifles), and that, as allways, the books never seem to go on long enough.
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Summary: Sergeant Sharpe and India in 1803.
Review: The Indian Mahratta Confederation is doing everything it can to drive the British from India, including hiring European officers to train and command its forces on the battlefield. Against them stands General Sir Arthur Wellesley and his forces, a mixture of English Redcoats, Scottish Highlanders and native troops. Richard Sharpe is sent into the storm to hunt down a britter English officer who has joined the forces of the Confederation. Toss in the colorful language, the vivid details of army live, the politics and the twirling chaos of combat and the result is a bloody story of adventure and greed (for gold and rank). Great stuff!
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Summary: Not Bad, But Not Cornwell's Best
Review: The Richard Sharpe novels of Bernard Cornwell rank among the great works of military fiction and are all wonderful adventure stories, but 'Sharpe's Triumph' doesn't quite have the same punch as those earlier works. Richard Sharpe, a Sergeant in the King's Army for four years, is sent on a dangerous mission to capture a former East India Company Lieutenant who is now a Major in the forces of an Indian prince. Sharpe, resolute as always, determines to find the traitor and bring him to justice in the hopes that this success will reward him with an officer's commission. But hot on his tail is Sharpe's old enemy Obidiah Hakeswill, a man so vile that he will stop at nothing to get his revenge. While it was fun to see characters like Hakeswill and Colonel McCandless again, the story boggs down at times. Missing is the humor that Sharpe's future Sergeant Harper brought to the series and the tense drama of fighting the armies of Napoleon. The view Cornwell gives us of the battle of Assaye, however, is stunning. Only Cornwell could make batttlefield action come alive in such a brilliant and unmistakable way. Fans of the series should check this one out but if you're new to the world of Richard Sharpe may I recommend starting with either 'Sharpe's Tiger,' or 'Sharpe's Rifles.'
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