Two feminine adventures from the age of Victoria
Mrs Francis Duberly, or 'Fanny' as she was widely known, would have been a remarkable woman in any age; as the wife of a serving soldier in the Victorian era she was doubly so. This was a strong minded, resolute woman whose thoughts, opinions and values were her own. She was fiercely independent, courageous and adventurous in an age when many women of her class preferred or accepted the 'genteel' life. This would never do for Fanny Duberly. She craved a life of variety and action and found it in the company of her husband on campaign. She left us two unprecedented accounts of her experiences of warfare in the mid-nineteenth century-both of which appear in this special and superb value Leonaur edition. From the gruelling battlefields of the Crimea which were enough to satisfy anyone's lust for military experience, Fanny then travelled to India where the great Indian Mutiny had broken out and the British Army were called upon to suppress the rebellious Bengal Native Army in a war to the knife. Fanny always rose to the occasion-this is a riveting, highly recommended, double read.

Frances Isabella Duberly (1829 1902) accompanied her officer husband to the Crimea as the only woman on the front line. Her letters home to her sister, highlighting the incompetence and negligence of the generals, and describing the appalling conditions in which the men were fighting, appeared anonymously in the press and, along with W. H. Russell's reports, helped stir public opinion against the prosecution of the war. This reaction persuaded Duberly to ask her brother-in-law to edit her diary, and it provoked a sensation when published in 1855. Although she occasionally conveys some of the elation of victory, the journal is more often a stark and disturbing document: following the battle of Balaclava she writes that 'even my closed eyelids were filled with the ruddy glare of blood'. No history of this brutal campaign can ignore this journal, and it stands comparison with any account of the horrors of war.

The diarist Mrs Henry Duberly (1829-1902), born Frances Locke, came to public attention through her Journal Kept during the Russian War, an 1855 account (also reissued in this series) of her experiences accompanying her husband's regiment in the Crimea, often as the only woman present. Her descriptions of military action - including the cavalry charges at Balaklava - and the hardships and gossip of army life, made it a popular success, although a dedication to Queen Victoria was declined. This 1859 volume narrates the Hussars' subsequent posting to India during the Mutiny. Describing the practicalities and privations of a 2,028 mile march through Rajputana from Bombay, and culminating in an account of the battle of Gwalior, including the news of Rani Lakshmi Bai's suicide, it illuminates the nature of military life in this tense period of Indian history, as well as the role of women on both sides of the conflict.

Two feminine adventures from the age of Victoria
Mrs Francis Duberly, or 'Fanny' as she was widely known, would have been a remarkable woman in any age; as the wife of a serving soldier in the Victorian era she was doubly so. This was a strong minded, resolute woman whose thoughts, opinions and values were her own. She was fiercely independent, courageous and adventurous in an age when many women of her class preferred or accepted the 'genteel' life. This would never do for Fanny Duberly. She craved a life of variety and action and found it in the company of her husband on campaign. She left us two unprecedented accounts of her experiences of warfare in the mid-nineteenth century-both of which appear in this special and superb value Leonaur edition. From the gruelling battlefields of the Crimea which were enough to satisfy anyone's lust for military experience, Fanny then travelled to India where the great Indian Mutiny had broken out and the British Army were called upon to suppress the rebellious Bengal Native Army in a war to the knife. Fanny always rose to the occasion-this is a riveting, highly recommended, double read.