Catherine Exley's Diary by Rebecca Probert
Catherine Exley was born in Leeds in 1779. Aged thirty, she boarded a ship and sailed for Portugal. Her memoir of the years she spent following the 34th Regiment is unique, the only first-hand account of the Peninsular War by the wife of a common British soldier. Published shortly after her death as a booklet which has since been lost, Catherine s Diary survived in a local newspaper of 1923 to be rediscovered by her great-great-great-grandson. It is difficult today to comprehend the hardships Catherine endured: of her twelve children, three died as infants while with her on the march; her clothes, covered with filth and vermin, often went unchanged for weeks at a time, and she herself more than once almost died from illness and starvation; shocked at the mutilation inflicted by muskets and cannons, she still had the composure to manhandle blackened corpses upon a battlefield in search of her missing husband when hardened soldiers could no longer stomach the task. Her diary is reproduced here along with chapters which bear upon Catherine s experiences in Spain and Portugal, and which put her life and writings in their social context.| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780956384799 |
| ISBN 10 | 095638479X |
| Title | Catherine Exley's Diary |
| Author | Rebecca Probert |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Takeaway (Publishing) |
| Year published | 2014-06-04 |
| Number of pages | 160 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |