[Signed] Sharpe's Eagle Cornwell, Bernard [Near Fine] [Hardcover]

Description

London: Collins, 1981  8vo., olive green boards, ruled and lettered in gilt to spine; complete in the original unclipped pictorial dust jacket (£6.50 net) designed by Anthony Kerins; pp. [vi], 7-266; a near-fine copy, some light vertical creasing along the backstrip boards; mild compression to spine ends, a touch spotted to the upper edge; in the near-fine jacket which is mildly toned, perhaps a tad touched by sun at the backstrip, but with only very light creasing to the tips of the spine and edges of folds; an excellent example.  First edition. This copy double signed by both the author and dust jacket illustrator to the title page, with a doodled sketch of two soldiers to the half title. Loosely inserted in an additional series of three sketches on one small slip of paper, in varying stages of completion. Kerins has inscribed this: “All done, John/ Hope you approve/ All best/ Tony”.  The first novel of Corwell’s renowned Sharpe series, which sets the protagonist against Napoleon in the summer of 1809. The Talavera Campaign was fought outside the town of Talavera de la Reina, Spain, during the Peninsular War. Although many of the depictions of Sir Arthur Wellesley's army are based on true historical events, Cornwell takes artistic licence with the depiction of a flanking manoeuvre by the Light Company which is completely fictional, as is the South Essex regiment they are attached to. Furthermore, as Cornwell freely admits in his historical postscript, no Eagle was captured during the battle. The remainder of the story is, however, based on true events, and the novel provides excellent historical insight into the events which occurred there, many of the facts taken directly from contemporary letters and diaries which the author accessed during his preliminary research.  Cornwell was brought up on the works of C. S. Forster, and in particular the adventures of the fictional British naval officer Horatio Hornblower. After discovering that there were no published works of fiction which concentrated on the military aspects of the battles, he decided to create his own series, and so the character of Richard Sharpe was born. It was, however, the hugely popular television series which rocketed Cornwell to fame, originally running from 1993 to 1997, and starring Sean Bean as the protagonist, with Irish actor Daragh O'Malley playing his second in command, Patrick Harper. Cornwell continues to write Sharpe novels today, even dedicating his twelfth book Sharpe's Battle, to Bean. “When I write Sharpe these days” he claimed, “I hear Sean's voice."" Kerins graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1978, and upon graduation was immediately approached to illustrate the series. Originally tutored by Quentin Blake, it was Kerins’s depiction of Sharpe that was the first to be seen by readers.  A one-off example of Cornwell’s debut work.