7 h 3 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 3 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a soldier's duty pulls him away just as love takes hold?
In The Queen's Cadet, and Other Tales, James Grant brings together short fiction rooted in a soldier's world. Barracks and battlefields share the page with affairs of the heart. The title tale belongs to a collection where military adventure, romance and touches of the uncanny draw the reader onward.
Grant's stories place love beside duty, with the soldier's calling pulling against the heart. His Victorian voice takes time over uniforms, landscapes and old buildings, while the narrator comments on the action. Ghostly notes add another kind of uncertainty to a world shaped by regiments and romantic hopes.
What you’ll discover
- A soldier's world Enter barracks and battlefields through tales shaped by Grant's background around the army.
- Love against duty Explore the strain of a soldier's calling when affairs of the heart pull elsewhere.
- A touch of ghosts Find supernatural touches alongside the collection's military adventures and old-fashioned romantic plots.
- Details worth lingering over Spend time with generous descriptions of uniforms, landscapes and old buildings along the way.
- A distinctly Victorian voice Meet a narrator who comments on the action rather than simply letting it pass.
Who will love it
Readers who love campfire yarns, ghost stories, soldiers' adventures and true tales of odd lives will find plenty here, from Welsh mountains and Norwegian fjords to the siege of Kotah and the Crimea.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A cadet's lost cousin follows him to war
- An unseen hand haunts a Danish soldier
- A dream warns a gunner of a rival
- A sergeant's feud ends in a siege
- A brigand's daughter draws a soldier into danger
- Three sketches of flight, hatred and vengeance
- A stranger claims a merchant's wife
- Old broadsides tell of omens and monsters
- Hearts, armies and ghosts close the book
Who’s who
- Jack ArkleyA Welsh orphan turned Queen's cadet and officer, he loves his cousin Eve and carries her promise with him.
- Eve BeverleyA golden-haired, fragile girl whose father forbids her love for Jack and promises that her spirit will stay with him.
- Carl HolbergA once merry Danish guards officer, now white-haired and fearful in a Norwegian valley, haunted by an unseen hand.
- Bob TwyfordA young bombardier from the Weald of Kent who wants to marry his cousin Bessie and distrusts the captain who pursues her.
- Philip ErnslieA young dragoon who stands by his father against a cruel sergeant-major during the Indian Mutiny and swears revenge.
- Raphael VeldaA Bersagliere clerk, son of a condemned brigand, who loves a brigand's daughter and fears his own colonel.
- Francesca RivarolaA dark-eyed girl hiding with her outlaw father in a mountain cave, who is betrothed to Raphael.
- Carl SteinmetzA Hamburg merchant who loses his wife to a stranger's claim and goes to war in Lorraine hoping to find her.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 3 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 6 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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The Queen's Cadet, and Other Tales
by James Grant
A young cadet loves his cousin on a Welsh mountain, and she promises never to leave him.
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In short
Picture a Victorian evening by the fire, a glass of brandy in hand, and a soldier leaning forward to say, let me tell you what happened to me. The Queen's Cadet, and Other Tales gathers ten pieces by James Grant, the Scottish writer of military romances who died in 1887.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A cadet's lost cousin follows him to war
In a bay window in Piccadilly, the narrator sits over iced brandy with his old Sandhurst comrade Jack Arkley. Tonight his face is pale, and he says he has been forced to believe in an unseen world.
He grew up in Wales with his uncle Morgan, a curate and harper. One day he rescues a lost girl on a mountain ledge. She is his cousin Eve, and her rich father has ignored Jack all his life.
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What is The Queen's Cadet and Other Tales about?
It is a collection of tales by James Grant. Most are told by soldiers or travelers and mix ghosts, war, love and betrayal, with three short historical sketches and a final set of essays on omens, giants, buried hearts and phantom armies.
What is a Queen's cadet?
In the first tale, a Queen's cadet is a young man admitted free to the Military College at Sandhurst because his father died in the army's service. Jack Arkley enters this way, and his father's death at Benares earns him the place.
Are the stories in this book true?
Several tales are told in the first person, though some are set against real events such as the Indian Mutiny, the Crimean War and the siege of Metz. The sketches and essays in the later pages draw on old accounts and newspapers.
The author
James Grant
1822–1887 · Scottish historical novelist
James Grant was a Scottish novelist born in Edinburgh in 1822. He wrote historical novels and books about military history. His first novel, The Romance of War, appeared in 1845. His other novels included Jane Seton and Under the Red Dragon. He died in London in 1887.
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