author
Edwin George Rundle
b. 1838
A Victorian soldier turned memoirist, he wrote with unusual directness about army life, discipline, and campaign service across the British Empire. His reminiscences offer a lively first-person window into the world of the 19th-century rank-and-file soldier.
1 Audiobook
A Soldier's Life: Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle
by Edwin George Rundle
About the author
Born in Penryn, Cornwall, on September 17, 1838, Edwin George Rundle later recorded that he was educated at local national and private schools before being apprenticed as a carpenter and joiner. He is best known for A Soldier's Life: Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle, a memoir published in 1909.
The book presents his own account of military service in the 17th Leicestershire Regiment of Foot. Contemporary catalog records for the volume describe him as a late sergeant-major in that regiment, an instructor and lecturer at the Military School in Toronto from 1866 to 1868, and a member of the Red River expedition.
Rundle's appeal today lies in the plainspoken, personal quality of his writing. Rather than offering a distant history, he gives readers an on-the-ground view of soldiering, making his memoir especially interesting for listeners drawn to military history, Victorian life, and firsthand narrative.