George Manington

George Manington was an English writer best known for A Soldier of the Legion (1907), a memoir-style account of his years serving in the French Foreign Legion. Contemporary catalog and library sources describe him as an Englishman, and the book itself is widely presented as a firsthand narrative of service in Algeria and Tonkin.

Brief biographical notes linked to the book say he had studied in France and Germany, was once a prospective medical student in Paris, and later worked in Asia as an interpreter, traveller, and journalist. Library records also show that he wrote later travel work, including The West Indies with British Guiana and British Honduras.

Manington's appeal today comes from the unusual path behind his writing: educated, well-traveled, and drawn into one of the most storied military forces of his time. His surviving work offers readers a vivid window into colonial-era soldiering and the restless, wide-ranging life of its author.