author
Francis John Bellew
1799–1868
A British army officer turned memoirist, he drew on his years in India to create a lively account of a young cadet’s first encounters with military life and empire. His best-known book blends personal experience, satire, and sharp observation.
1 Audiobook
Memoirs of a griffin : Or, A cadet's first year in India
by Francis John Bellew
About the author
Born in Bexley, Kent, in 1799, Francis John Bellew served in the Bengal Army and later wrote about that world in Memoirs of a Griffin; or, A Cadet’s First Year in India. The book became his best-known work and is remembered for its vivid picture of British India as seen through the eyes of a newcomer.
Bellew’s life connected military service, travel, and writing. Records indicate that he married Anne Smoult Temple in 1818, had several children, and later held the post of paymaster of the 1st Royal Surrey Militia. He died in 1868 in Edmonton, Middlesex.
Some details of his career survive more clearly than others, but the broad outline is consistent: he was a nineteenth-century officer-author whose fiction and memoir-like writing grew directly out of lived experience in India.