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    The White Company
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    The White Company
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    The White Company
    Ebook513 pages8 hours

    The White Company

    By Arthur Conan Doyle

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A historical adventure set during the Hundred Years' War. The story follows a young man as he leaves the shelter of an abbey in England and becomes involved with Edward, the Black Prince's campaign in Spain. Doyle later wrote a prequel, titled "Sir Nigel", concerning the early life of one of the heroes in this novel.



    "We go to France, and from thence I trust to Spain, in humble search of a field in which we may win advancement and perchance some small share of glory. For this purpose I would have you know that it is not my wont to let any occasion pass where it is in any way possible that honor may be gained. I would have you bear this in mind, and give great heed to it that you may bring me word of all cartels, challenges, wrongs, tyrannies, infamies, and wronging of damsels. Nor is any occasion too small to take note of, for I have known such trifles as the dropping of a gauntlet, or the flicking of a breadcrumb, when well and properly followed up, lead to a most noble spear-running."



    - Sir Nigel, "The White Company"
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAB Books
    Release dateMar 14, 2018
    ISBN9782291001089
    Author

    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician. He is the creator of the Sherlock Holmes character, writing his debut appearance in A Study in Scarlet. Doyle wrote notable books in the fantasy and science fiction genres, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels.

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    Reviews for The White Company

    3.5/5

    147 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle has archers, knights, squires, battles, and love. The first edition was printed in 1922 complete with full page illustrations by N. C. Wyeth. I was worried it might be a struggle, but such was not the case. Musical, flowing prose, mixed with battles fierce and bloody, and a company of men who were true comrades. "Let us thank God that we may ever hold their virtues. The sky may darken, and the clouds may gather, and again the day may come when Britain may have sore need of her children, on whatever shore of the sea they be found. Shall they not muster at her call?" The End.
    • 4/5
      I've had The White Company on my reader for a while and decided now was the time to read it. I originally downloaded it because Sir John Hawkwood, leader of the White Company, is an ancestor, and I thought I might find out more about him. However, Sir John and most of his soldiers are in Italy in this story, so I found myself reading a different tale.Alleyne Edricson leaves the abbey where he's been raised, sent to participate in the world before he decides to take vows or not. He falls in with Sam Aylward, an archer in the small group of the White Company left in France and ends up joining him. They proceed to the coast, and on the way, he rescues a young woman Maude from his brother, the Socman of Minstead. Maude is the daughter of Sir Nigel Loring, the new leader of the White Company. He plans to take them to France, meet up with the Black Prince, and proceed into Spain to fight in support of Pedro the Cruel of Spain against his half-brother Henry. Many adventures ensue before Alleyne returns to his lady.This is a book in the grand tradition of Ivanhoe, Lorna Doone, Robin Hood, etc. The language can be somewhat flowery, and sometimes florid, but it's a grand adventure. It's populated with real characters from the Hundred Years War (though not, alas, John Hawkwood). The characters are diverse and there are some very funny moments. So, while this wasn't the book I thought, it is a good and enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      summer reading in high school. I remember, even now, how exciting this adventure tale was.
    • 4/5
      The world is given to them, and it resounds with the clang of their hammers and the ringing of their church bells. They call them many names, and they rule them this way or that but they are all English, for I can hear the voices of the people. On I go, and onwards over seas where man hath never yet sailed, and I see a great land under new stars and a stranger sky, and still the land is EnglandConan Doyle is splendid.
    • 4/5
      I loved this one. I'm very happy I discovered this pearl by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an author I've come to appreciate after reading all the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novellas available.
      I was surprised to read Doyle engaged with a historical novel, and at the depth of his research. Also the writing style is quite different from the elegant, yet very fresh style employed in the Sherlock Holmes stories, it aims to capture the spirit of the time portrayed, which is the earlier part of the Hundred Years War.
      This novel centers around four characters, mainly Alleyne Edricson and Sir Nigel Loring, and then the veteran archer Samkin Aylward and freshly recruited John of Hordle. The book is riddled with comic relief scenes, and it's intriguing to see how the author conveyed the medieval feel with impeccable British humor.
      The descriptions of the landscape are lavish, rich, masterfully rendered, and those of the scenes, people and objects carefully depicted. I lack the historical background to judge the minutiae, but with a modern word, the world-building is truly compelling and I was amazed at Doyle's writing style versatility. The registry is intentionally archaic, probably to further immerse the reader in the epic of the time, but wholly understandable (just a little galore of thou, art, shalt, fain, rede and the likes, it's never bad to learn new words after all), even for me who read English as a secondary language. It's atmospheric!
      The characters are wonderfully stereotyped, in a very clever manner because each integrates with the others to sweep the reader in the English countryside, on-board overloaded vessels, in the lists at Bordeaux, in the war-stricken French countryside until the lands of Spain. Doyle subtly, and none-too-subtly at times, intertwines his own views about classes, the roles of men and women in the society and the widespread inequality between peasants and gentles, highlighting the much more "advanced" philosophy of England (let's state facts, there's still a royal family in the UK) compared with the other rules of the period, and its archery might.
      The book mainly follows pious Alleyne, when, being twenty of age, he is released to the world from the abbey of Beaulieu as per his deceased sire's will, so he can see it with his own eyes before committing his life one way of another. Doyle critics the church's tenets, petty rules and conservative attitude which ensnares men in a "narrow, stagnant circle of existence" with a sharp-edged sarcasm, but also through young Alleyne, grown-up but ignorant of the world, presents a colorful society rife with "injustice and violence and the hardness of man to man", where the lights and shadows of life are never clearly divided.
      As he travels on, he meets with a motley of characters exacerbating the various aspects of humanity, the good and the bad, and he's soon accompanied by Sir Loring, the steadfast embodiment of the ballads' ideal of chivalry (at least in manner), roguish bear-sized John, still berated by his elder mother and witty, picaresque Aylward, whose vision of the world and manner of speech are a joy from start to end.
      The reader learns with the naive protagonist that "what men are and what men profess to be are very wide asunder" and at times, "ignorance may be more precious than wisdom", so not to lose faith in your neighbor by too much cynicism.
      The namesake White Company is met way into the second half of the book, but the tale centers around it and eventually the Spanish campaign of prince Edward of England.
      The story is interesting, featuring knights, romance, family feuds, feat-of-arms, tilts, romance, battle, bloodshed, military strategies, a little coming-of-age (no, Alleyne doesn't rush back to the abbey :)) and it's quite fast-paced, even rushed at the end (I felt the last part could have been elaborated further); it's totally, utterly, absolutely hilarious, partial to the "grandeur anglaise" -but it's not impeding, apart probably from the scene of chapter XXIX- and describing human condition with a levity of great quality. Vividly recommended.

      "Your Company has been, then, to bow knee before our holy father, the Pope Urban, the prop and centre of Christendom?" asked Alleyne, much interested. "Perchance you have yourself set eyes upon his august face?"
      "Twice I saw him," said the archer [Aylward]. "He was a lean little rat of a man, with a scab on his chin. The first time we had five thousand crowns out of him, though he made much ado about it. The second time we asked ten thousand, but it was three days before we could come to terms, and I am of opinion myself that we might have done better by plundering the palace. His chamberlain and cardinals came forth, as I remember, to ask whether we would take seven thousand crowns with his blessing and a plenary absolution, or the ten thousand with his solemn ban by bell, book and candle. We were all of one mind that it was best to have the ten thousand with the curse...."
    • 3/5
      A campy version of a bit of Froissart's chronicles in a setting suitable for 1891 tastes. It is fun, but not a very gripping story, compared to Bernard Cornwell's Thomas of Hookton adventures. Suitable for young adults, but never to be taken as history.
    • 3/5
      Substance: A romance of the old style, with a naive young man released from the monastery where he was raised to spend a year in the world before taking vows, if he still chooses. It is clear from this story of war and love that he won't. Barring a few instances where transitions from peril to safety lack some essential continuity, most of the episodes are entertaining.Style: Doyle throws around terms of heraldry and history with mad abandon. He does not gloss over the unseemly aspects of life in the Middle Ages, but stays on the high ground. A mild humor (also evident in the Holmes canon) runs as an undercurrent throughout the work.
    • 4/5
      A very fun adventure of two men who leave a monastery (one in disgrace and one in triumph) and end up joining a company of archers on its way to France. For most of the book, we follow the group in good-hearted encounters, only culminating in dramatic battle. Quite an enjoyable book.
    • 4/5
      A delightful and strange adventure story in the vein of The Three Musketeers or The Scarlet Pimpernel, but also an early foreshadow of the Mannerpunk genre which grew out of Peake's Gormenghast books.The well-researched text creates a believable world which is undoubtedly (and delightfully) removed from the modern. Not only does Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame) create a fairly accurate portrait of ever-warring Feudal Europe, but at least proposes a psychological type for the soldiers of the time.Of course, to take such a type from (even contemporary) works is a bit of a silly falsehood, and with characteristic British whimsy, Doyle births a cast which seems realistic not despite but because of its deep-seated eccentricity. Of course, it is precisely this method which will grip Peake (in the wake of Chekhov) in his surrealistic works.Though once quite popular, this tale has become somewhat less well-known, perhaps because it is easy to take from it a stance of bravado, militarism, and anglocentrism. Perhaps there will come to us a dissolving of such strong self-identifications with such things that people will no longer feel a need to oppose fictional portrayals, and Doyle and Kipling may return with a grain of salt.