Dead Men Telling Tales: Napoleonic War Veterans and the Military Memoir Industry, 1808-1914

Dead Men Telling Tales is an original account of the lasting cultural impact made by the autobiographies of Napoleonic soldiers over the course of the nineteenth century. Focusing on the nearly three hundred military memoirs published by British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese veterans of the Peninsular War (1808-1814), Matilda Greig charts the histories of these books over the course of a hundred years, around Europe and the Atlantic, and from writing to publication to afterlife. Drawing on extensive archival research in multiple languages, she challenges assumptions made by historians about the reliability of these soldiers' direct eyewitness accounts, revealing the personal and political motives of the authors and uncovering the large cast of characters, from family members to publishers, editors, and translators, involved in production behind the scenes. By including literature from Spain and Portugal, Greig also provides a missing link in current studies of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, showing how the genre of military memoirs developed differently in south-western Europe and led to starkly opposing national narratives of the same war. Her findings tell the history of a publishing phenomenon which gripped readers of all ages across the world in the nineteenth century, made significant profits for those involved, and was fundamental in defining the modern 'soldier's tale'.

About the Author

Dr Matilda Greig is a Research Associate at Cardiff University, working on the AHRC-funded project 'Strange Meetings: Enemy Encounters 1800-2020', and has previously held research and teaching posts at University College Dublin and Sciences Po. She completed her PhD at the European University Institute in Florence in 2018, and holds an MA from Leiden University and a BA from the University of Cambridge. Matilda writes about the cultural history of war, particularly soldiers' memoirs and popular material culture, and specialises in modern European and Atlantic history. Her work has been published in History Workshop Journal, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, and Hypothèses.