The Sharpe Companion: The Early Years (Book #30)

The Sharpe Companion: The Early Years (Mark Adkin, 2005), is a guide to the Sharpe "prequels"--the pre-Peninsular War part of the series where Sharpe serves in India, happens to be at the right place at the right time to fight at Trafalgar, and takes part in the expedition to Copenhagen. It covers much the same ground as my last research read, Wellington in India, only on a much simpler level and with summaries from the novels woven in. The simpler level isn't necessarily a bad thing--I'd often read Adkin's description of some facet of military life or Indian culture circa 1800 and think, "Oh, THAT'S what Jac Weller was talking about." If you're only going to read one, you want the Weller, but this book is a great help if you want really large, clear battle maps, detailed discussion complete with diagrams of uniforms and troop formations, and the like.