MAXWELL, William Hamilton (ed.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Peninsular Sketches; by Actors on the Scene. First edition of this elusive and invaluable "collection of memoirs by different officers strung together in chronological order with a linking text" (Sandler). Maxwell was once thought to have served with Wellington, but it seems "that he gained his knowledge of recent military campaigns from talking and drinking with officers of regiments successively stationed in co. Mayo" (ODNB). Born into a "good, respected family" in Newry, Co. Down, Maxwell (1791-1850) was keen to follow a military career, but his family thought otherwise. Instead, he became a prolific writer - "a staple of the reading libraries" - and a "vivacious and an entertaining conversationalist" (ODNB). Bankrupt by 1840 he was in the Queen's Bench Prison when he applied to the Royal Literary Fund in 1847. But ill health and financial distress did for him. His valuable life of Wellington remains his lasting memorial.

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