Audiobook · read by volunteers
White Company
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
Read by Clive Catterall · 38 chapters · 14 h 43
About the book
England and France are locked in the Hundred Years’ War, and young Alleyne Edricson has just left the quiet cloister where he was raised. Rejected by a violent brother, he has little but a good heart and a head full of scholarship. He takes service with a famed knight and soon finds himself riding in the company of archers, soldiers and adventurers, among them the colourful men of the White Company. Hard roads, tournaments, brawls and battles test his courage, while a lady of rank gives him a reason to aspire to knighthood. Arthur Conan Doyle, better known for Sherlock Holmes, wrote this as one of the books he loved best. It is a stirring, humorous historical adventure, full of vivid characters, rousing fights and the romance of a vanished age.
Introduction
Arthur Conan Doyle, born in Edinburgh in 1859, trained as a physician before turning to fiction. Millions know him as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, yet he considered his historical novels to be among his best work, and The White Company, published in 1891, was the one he was proudest of. He later wrote a companion, Sir Nigel, and he died in 1930.
The story is set in the fourteenth century, during the Hundred Years’ War, when English bowmen were famous across Europe. Doyle did a great deal of reading to bring the period to life, and he fills the book with details of armour, weapons, inns and roads. The tone is cheerful and brisk, with a strong sense of comradeship among the soldiers, and a love of language that echoes the old chronicles. The novel was a great success with Victorian readers, who relished its picture of medieval adventure.
This LibriVox recording is the work of a single volunteer and consists of thirty-eight sections, with a total listening time of about fourteen and a half hours. It will suit anyone who enjoys long, absorbing stories with plenty of action and a touch of romance. Whether you come to it for the history or for the swordplay, Doyle’s energy and good humour carry you along.
Listeners who know Doyle only from Sherlock Holmes will be surprised by the warmth and humour here. The characters bicker, boast and sing, and the descriptions of travel through France and Spain have a freshness that makes the Middle Ages feel close. It is a long book, but one that invites you to stay with it.
Public domain
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text