Sharpe’s Eagle was published by Collins in 1981 — Cornwell’s first published novel and the book that introduced Richard Sharpe, a rifleman in the British Army during the Peninsular War. Sharpe is an officer risen from the ranks — a rare and socially fraught position in the early nineteenth-century British Army, where commissions were purchased by gentlemen and common soldiers were expected to obey, not command. Sharpe earned his commission by saving the Duke of Wellington’s life at the Battle of Assaye in India, and his promotion is resented by the aristocratic officers who consider him an interloper.
The novel is set during the 1809 Talavera campaign in Spain, and Sharpe’s mission — to capture a French Imperial Eagle (the gilded standard carried by each regiment, equivalent to the regimental colors) — provides the narrative drive. But the obstacles Sharpe faces are as much internal as external: he must contend with Colonel Simmerson, an incompetent and vindictive officer who has lost his regiment’s own colors in a disastrous river crossing, and who sees Sharpe’s success as a threat to his own reputation.
Cornwell’s battle scenes are the novel’s greatest achievement: he writes combat with a visceral immediacy that puts the reader in the firing line. The noise, the smoke, the chaos, the terror of cavalry charges, and the mechanical discipline of volley fire are rendered with an authority that derives from meticulous research and an instinctive understanding of how violence feels when you are in the middle of it.
Collecting Sharpe’s Eagle
First edition (Collins, London, 1981): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $300–$800
- Very good: $100–$300
- Signed: $400–$1,000
Cornwell’s debut is his most collectible title. The first print run was modest, and fine copies with bright, unclipped jackets are scarce.