A word on my books.....

I'm often asked what I consider to be my best work. Given that most authors probably think all of their work is pretty good (otherwise they wouldn't put them before the public) it would seem a difficult choice. However, I certainly have a couple of titles which I consider to be my best pieces of work. First, there is Galloping at Everything, which was very well received by all but a couple of critics who felt they should have written it. The leading expert on British cavalry, the Marquis of Anglesey, loved it and that's good enough for me. It has certainly helped nail the myth that Wellington's cavalry were simply brainless gallopers. The second title was The Crimean War: A Clash of Empires. My longest book to date, it benefited hugely from the important contribution made by my co-author, Natalia Ishchenko, who told the Russian version of events, something which is almost always lacking in other histories of the Crimean War. The book has received more reviews and has appeared in more bibliographies than any other of my twenty odd titles.

These two books are probably my best, but I'm still very fond of one or two other titles, particularly In Hell Before Daylight and The Waters of Oblivion. In Hell was my first book, published way back in 1984. I was looking for something new, something that hadn't been written about in a single book, and the siege of Badajoz in 1812 seemed to fit the bill. When the book was finished I took the manuscript along to Martin Windrow who said bluntly that that title, Badajoz, wasn't a good one. I still remembering him sitting there, telling me that it ought to be called something like 'up to my arse in muck and bullets.' I took the hint and came up with two possible titles, both from quotes by survivors of the storming. The celebrated rifleman, Johnny Kincaid, said, 'such was the rage for passports in to eternity that I was obliged to leave my kit in the care of the wounded.' It was a good quote, but then I read Bugler William Green, also of the 95th, who said he's been in action fourteen times before but had never received as much as a scratch. He went on to say that as he moved forward in the darkness to attack the breaches a thought struck him forcibly, and he said to himself he'd be in hell before daylight. And so I had my title. Numerous rejections followed the completion of the book until the late Ian Morley-Clarke, who ran the Midas Press, offered to publish it. Hurrah! It was some seven years until my next book, The Waters of Oblivion, which remains one of my favourites. It is still the only English account to be written solely about the ill-fated 1806-07 campaign in South America. Apparently, it has made me quite a cult figure in Argentina!

Wellington's Regiments has been probably my biggest selling title, trawling good sales over the years. Then there is Bloody Albuera! a superbly produced book which benefited enormously from Martin Windrow's expert editing. The same goes for my 3-volume work, Campaigns of Wellington, which had the benefit of more fine editing by Kit Shepherd. The set was wonderfully produced by The Folio Society, and my only regret is that it was only on sale to members. It's a great shame it wasn't available in shops as it's the first multi-volume work on Wellington's campaigns for a hundred years. I think the problem is that many people think the Folio Society only reproduces classic works, whereas they do, in fact, commission new works, Campaigns of Wellington being one of them. War in the Crimea was also wonderfully produced, and included 40 pages of colour but the publishers appear (to me at least) to have made very little attempt at selling the bloody thing, which is a shame.

I suppose I can't talk about my books without mentioning For King and Country, the letters and diaries of John Mills of the Coldstream Guards, from 1811-14. I had enormous fun editing the previously unpublished letters and diaries, which had masses of new information. Mills also left what is probably the finest account of the debacle at Burgos and contains damning verdicts on Wellington. I suppose I went a bit over the top with my footnotes, some of which ran to half a page, prompting james Colquhoun to comment, in a review for the Journal of the Honourable Artillery Company, that 'Mr Fletcher is much like the British cavalry: he doesn't know when to stop.' Beautiful. I'll have that on my tombstone...