Wellington: A Personal History was published by HarperCollins in 1997. Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, is one of the most thoroughly documented figures in British history — his military dispatches alone fill twelve volumes — yet Hibbert manages to find a fresh perspective by focusing on the personal rather than the strategic.
The young Wellesley who emerges from the early chapters is not the Iron Duke but an awkward, financially embarrassed younger son of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family, sent to India partly because he had no better prospects. His transformation in India — where he won the Battle of Assaye with coolness and calculation that astonished his superiors — sets the pattern for his career: he succeeded not through genius but through meticulous preparation, attention to logistics, and an absolute refusal to be flurried.
The Peninsular War and Waterloo occupy the book’s central section, and Hibbert writes them with his characteristic clarity — the reader always knows where the armies are, why they are there, and what the stakes of each engagement are. But Hibbert is equally interested in Wellington’s post-military career: his disastrous marriage to Kitty Pakenham, his complicated relationships with other women, his time as Prime Minister (during which he was more hated than at any point in his military career), and his long, strange old age as the revered “Duke” — a national monument who was also a cantankerous, opinionated, and surprisingly funny old man.
Collecting Wellington
First edition (HarperCollins, London, 1997): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good/very good: $8–$20