Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Prey: The Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Prey: The Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Prey: The Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807
    Audiobook11 hours

    Sharpe’s Prey: The Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807

    Written by Bernard Cornwell

    Narrated by Rupert Farley

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    *SHARPE’S COMMAND, the brand new novel in the global bestselling series, is available to pre-order now*

    Denmark, 1807

    When Lieutenant Richard Sharpe arrives in Copenhagen on a secret mission to help stop a war, he finds a city swarming with spies and deceit. Yet the French forces are gathering, their eyes on the Danish navy’s impressive battle fleet: one that could replace every ship they lost at Trafalgar.

    The city burns, attacked by the French and besieged by the British. And discovering that he’ll have to make his own rules, fighting through the shadowy maze of friends and foes, is Sharpe . . .

    ‘A master storyteller’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 26, 2014
    ISBN9780007582525
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Prey: The Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807
    Author

    Bernard Cornwell

    Bernard Cornwell was born in London, raised in Essex and worked for the BBC for eleven years before meeting Judy, his American wife. Denied an American work permit he wrote a novel instead and has been writing ever since. He and Judy divide their time between Cape Cod and Charleston, South Carolina.

    More audiobooks from Bernard Cornwell

    Related to Sharpe’s Prey

    Titles in the series (1)

    View More
    View More

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Charles Ii’s Great Escape

      May 23, 2019

      Charles Ii’s Great Escape
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Last Of The English

      Aug 19, 2021

      The Last Of The English
      7 min read

    • Article

      Nemesis Of The Normans

      Oct 28, 2021

      Nemesis Of The Normans
      8 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Simpson Learns A Lesson

      Jul 29, 2021

      Mrs Simpson Learns A Lesson
      4 min read

    • Article

      William Wallace

      Mar 27, 2020

      William Wallace
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Loyal rebel

      Feb 8, 2020

      The Loyal rebel
      17 min read

    • Article

      Norman Conquests

      Jul 7, 2022

      Norman Conquests
      10 min read

    • Article

      Onwards, Unknown Soldier

      Nov 4, 2020

      THERE was no doubt in the mind of The Times’s leader writer about the significance of the event. The ceremony, he wrote, had been ‘the most beautiful, the most touching, and the most impressive that in all its long, eventful story this island has eve

      5 min read

    • Article

      Victoria's Secrets

      Apr 3, 2024

      Victoria's Secrets
      4 min read

    • Article

      Battle Of Lincoln

      Jan 23, 2020

      Battle Of Lincoln
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Jan 26, 2022

      AFTER reading about swans in your Christmas double issue (‘Ride a white swan’, December 15/22, 2021), I checked my Franklin Mint bisque royal swan by R. V. Ruyckevelt, which dwells in our bathroom, and found that its beak was correct. It was interest

      2 min read

    • Article

      First in Arms

      Mar 11, 2021

      First in Arms
      5 min read

    • Article

      Winston Churchill

      Feb 5, 2020

      Winston Churchill
      8 min read

    • Article

      From Ballroom To Battlefield

      Feb 20, 2020

      From Ballroom To Battlefield
      5 min read

    • Article

      Sweeping Sorrow

      Mar 29, 2022

      Sweeping Sorrow
      15 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Oct 18, 2023

      Readers’ Letters
      4 min read

    • Article

      Q &A Anne O’Brien

      Oct 1, 2020

      Anne O’Brien is a Sunday Times bestselling author who has written extensively on the medieval period, as well as the British Civil War and Regency eras. Before becoming a successful writer, Anne was a history teacher. She lives in the Welsh Marches o

      1 min read

    • Article

      Famous Battle Barnet 1471

      Mar 19, 2018

      Famous Battle Barnet 1471
      3 min read

    • Article

      Famous Battle Barnet 1471

      Nov 29, 2018

      Famous Battle Barnet 1471
      2 min read

    • Article

      From the Editor

      Feb 5, 2020

      To understand Winston Churchill, it is necessary to visit Blenheim Palace. While Chartwell is the house with which he is most closely associated, Churchill did not purchase his estate in Kent until he was nearly fifty. The ducal lifestyle of Victoria

      1 min read

    • Article

      Henry The Holy

      Jan 21, 2021

      Henry The Holy
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sharpe’s Prey

    4.5/5

    48 ratings16 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Love the Sharpe series of books as much as I loved the TV series!
    • 4/5
      We last saw Sharpe improbably serving as an honorary marine on board a fictional substitute for the ship that came to Admiral Nelson's rescue at a crucial stage of the sea battle at Trafalgar, a hilariously contrived plot in which to find our infantry bastard-hero but still jolly good fun. Sharpe's India adventures thus came to a rollicking closure, and Europe beckons....

      As Sharpe's Prey opens, though, Europe, or at least England, has not exactly welcomed our man with open arms -- even though he came home from India a wealthy man (booty and jewels a-plenty!) and an officer to boot. If only that had been all. If only. But alas, the soap opera/shipboard romance/adultery plot that rounded out Sharpe's Trafalgar had its consequences. The upper class hasn't stayed upper by being kind to upstarts like Sharpe, after all. So it is a penniless, cranky, hopeless Sharpe whom we find wandering the streets of London, not even soldiering really as the Rifles regiment to which he was sent has the same prejudice against officers promoted from the ranks as everybody else, and they've made a quartermaster of him. We're off to battle; clean up the barracks, there's a good fellow.

      Thank goodness some other good folk returned to England ahead of him, who think well of him as a man of action and effectiveness. Such is Colonel (now General) Baird, whose bacon Sharpe saved in Sharpe's Tiger (at the Siege of Seringapatam), and who, it turns out, has been looking for him for a while, for a special mission in which Sharpe shall become a secret agent!

      Well, hey, honorary marine, secret agent, not that far of a leap, eh wot?

      Soon Sharpe is heading off to glamorous, sunny, uh, Denmark, in the company of a mysterious half-Danish captain, on a mission to prevent the Danes from letting Napoleon have their navy to replace what he lost at Trafalgar. Pretty straightforward, right? Oh, except this captain is a complete bastard in the evil Major Dodd mode. Um. If a man is definied by the quality of his enemies, well, Sharpe is a most fascinating fellow, isn't he? And one who is never more dangerous than when he is completely screwed.

      But so most of the action in this book takes place during Britain's 1807 attack on Denmark, which included a land skirmish the Danes remember as the "battle of the wooden shoes" (because so many of those fighting for the Danes were farmer/militiamen who wore those famous Danish clogs to battle) and several days of intense bombardment of the city of Copenhagen. Which is to say everything takes a bit of a darker tone, as a question that looms through the first two-thirds of the novel is whether Britain actually will bomb the city, which is full of women and children.

      I don't recall Sharpe or anyone else worrying so much about civilian bystanders in India.

      The bombing campaign itself -- shells and mortar rounds fired from huge wallowing British "bomb ships" in Copenhagen's outer harbor -- is described in harrowing detail, enough so to where it might make some readers queasy (as might depictions of how a spymaster gets interrogated by French agents. Pliers and teeth are involved. Ack). There are no strategic maneuvers to trace out on a map here; it's just brute force and siege warfare. It ain't pretty, but that's the way it was, and is. As Sharpe observes to himself as he sails away from the scene of his latest strange adventures, it's a soldier's world, and Sharpe is a soldier, and while he had plenty on his conscience before his Scandinavian tour, he's learned there was plenty more where that came from, and more still to come, for soon he'll be off to the Peninsula (as in Spain and Portugal) and even more war!

      Lord, I do love Sharpe. Reading about him that is. I don't think I'd want to meet him in person. No. No, that wouldn't be very nice at all.
    • 4/5
      Lt. Sharpe lost a lot of my respect in the previous book (Sharpe's Trafalgar), but he regained a lot of it--perhaps all of it and even more!--in this book.It starts off with Sharpe, mourning Grace's death, wanting out of the army. The only thing preventing him from doing so is the fact that he is unable to sell his commission. Since he was given his commission and had not bought it, as a 'proper' officer would have, he could not sell it back. The poor guy is utterly broke, due to legal issues with Grace's family after her death.He finds his way back to the foundling home where he grew up, and he meets up with the Master. It gets ugly, of course, but Sharpe is protecting a little girl. He does have a soft spot in him, it seems. A likeable character, all in all, even though he can be a brute. But he knows he's a brute, and so does the author, so it's all good.The story goes along and Sharpe finds himself in Denmark.This was a really interesting bit... Cornwell showed England as the aggressors in this battle. Denmark was utterly neutral, but because it had a good fleet that France was eyeing, England wanted control of the Danish fleet before France got it. Denmark, being neutral, refused time and again... so the fleet had to be taken from it by force.Sharpe was in Copenhagen when all this stuff happened, and he was torn between doing a duty that needed done and seeing the Danish people dying when they shouldn't have been. Good conflict, there. It gave Sharpe some extra layers in his character, too.And... the Rifles make a cameo, including Patrick Harper! *squee* The next book, which I have already read but will probably read again, is Sharpe's Rifles, and it shows us Sharpe's inclusion into that group.Good stuff. I was happy with this one. ^_^
    • 5/5
      This is a great Audio Book ,,, the voice talent was awesome, he made a great story come to life, fantastic,,, And of Course Sharpe Triumphs,,,
      But only just,, True Bernard Cornwell Gold.
    • 3/5
      Another enjoyable Sharpe historical fiction. The history of the campaign against the Danes at Copenhagen is (presumably) accurate. Like the entire Sharpe series the history of the British forces from India through Trafalger to the Napoleanic battles would be mostly unknown to American readers except for Cornwall's Sharpe series.Cornwall follows his usual Sharpe formula: lots of violent action, intrigue, Sharpe's attractive influence on a woman, the portrayal of haughty superiors, the practicality of down-to-earth common soldiers and sailors. Not high literature, but fun to read.
    • 3/5
      A better quality Sharpe. The follow-up to Nelson's attack on the Danes is obscure enough for our working class hero to have a wonderful time.
    • 3/5
      We're still in the sequence of prequels, building up to the Iberian Campaigns, though Sharpe has made it to England and his new regiment, the 95th Regiment, the Rifles, but his past history meant that he'd been assigned regimental quartermaster and left behind when the regiment left for war Rather miffed at that, Lieutenant Sharpe is ordered to accompany the Honourable John Lavisser on a secret mission to the Danes where Lavisser is to offer a bribe to, ah, encourage the Danes to hand over their fleet to the British - to stop it from falling into the hands of the French, who want the ships to make up their losses at Trafalgar. So Sharpe finds himself mixed up in the murky world of international espionage again as Lavisser sells out to the French and it falls to Sharpe to repair the damage...The first attack on Denmark, with Vice Admiral Nelson as second in command, is well known - it's where Nelson turned his blind eye, but this later invasion in 1807, is far less well known in Britain and far less honourable in so many ways but Sharpe has his own sense of honour and he does his best to keep hold of it as the people round him lose their way.
    • 4/5
      Though not the best in the Sharpe series, Sharpe’s Prey is solid with action and adventure throughout. Taking place in 1807 our hero once again finds himself riding shotgun, and with a seven barreled gun almost literally, on the coattails of the soon to be Duke of Wellington. I found this fifth book in the series a bit lugubrious but all in all a decent ride.
    • 5/5
      About the British bombardment of Copenhagen in the year 1807. The Danish fleet was desired by both the French and ourselves and it was hoped that the Danes would hand it over to the British without the need of force. This was not to be and British forces devastated the city and killed many of the inhabitants. Not one of our best moments I feel.Bernard Cornwell has once again combined fact and fiction to make another exciting adventure for his hero Richard Sharpe.
    • 3/5
      A good read but it seemed too easily resolved.
    • 3/5
      Not my favorite of the Sharpe novels, but I'm reading them in order, so ...
    • 3/5
      Didn't care for this one nearly as much as its predecessors. I sympathized too much with the defenseless residents of Copenhagen, I suppose. Still, it was interesting learning about this little known episode.
    • 4/5
      Always fun, you can always cound of Sharpe and Cornwall for a ripping good yarn.
    • 5/5
      #5 in the Richard Sharpe series.It's 1807, and Sharpe is broke and bitter. After returning to England after the Batle of Trafalgar, he and Lady Grace Hale began living together. But the class difference between them led to social disapproval and shunning. When Lady Grace died in childbirth, leaving Sharpe stricken with grief, the family's lawyers descended like a pack of vultures and stripped Sharpe of all his property, leaving him destitute into the bargain. In addition, he still has not integrated well into the Rifles; the company captain relegates Sharpe to the menial and boring task of quartermaster.Desperate, feeling that his fortunes can go no lower, Sharpe plans and carries out a daring robbery of a man he hates more than anyone else in the world--the head of the orphanage in which Sharpe grew up. Sharpe intends to take the money and desert from the army. Hiding in a tavern to escape pursuit, Sharpe suddenly is accosted by Major General Sir David Baird, a Scotsman whose life he saved during the storming of the fortress of Seringapatam in India. Baird has been searching for Sharpe, since Sharpe is exactly the person that Baird thinks can handle an unusual and dangerous assignment: escorting Foot Gruads' Captain Lavisser to Copenhagen, Denmark on a mission to prevent the French from capturing Denmark's navy--by means of a bribe.The errand seems simple, but Sharpe does not reckon on treachery. Trapped in Copenhagen and a hunted man, he enters a series of adventures that ends with the brutal bombardment of Copenhagen's civilian population by the British, possibly the first instance of deliberate warfare on a civilian population to achieve military ends. In this installment is the first appearance of Lord Pumphrey, and effeminate-seeming but subtle and powerful member of the Foreign Office. Those who have read the Aubrey-Maturin series will remember Sir Joseph Blaine, Stephen Maturin's contact and a decent person. However, Blaine refers to other types in the Foreign Office, and Pumphreys is definitely one of the "others"--ruthless and remorseless behind a smiling and foppish exterior.The bombardment of Copenhagen is described in detail and leaves nothing to the imagination in terms of the suffering of the civilian population.As usual, Cornwell has done his research and history comes alive in another very well-written book in this excellent series. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      This is the fifth (chronologically...they were published in a different order) in Cornwell's series about Richard Sharpe, a soldier in the British infantry during the Napoleonic Wars. As the subtitle says, this episode occurs during the British invasion of Copenhagen in 1807, a seldom-remembered event. Denmark possesses the second most powerful navy in existence after Trafalgar destroyed the French fleet. The Danes are neutral in the wars and have taken their fleet and moored it up in Copenhagen's harbor, refusing to allow either side to use it.As our story opens, the French have just concluded the Treaty of Tilsit with Russia, one whose provisions states that the Russians will turn a blind eye toward a French move to seize the Danish fleet. The British cannot afford to allow this and demand that Denmark moor the fleet in England for safe-keeping. The Danes refuse. In response, the British attack Copenhagen, shelling—tactics that presage the horrors of warfare a century later—the civilian population of the city with thousands of explosive and incendiary rounds in order to break the Danish will and force them to yield the ships.Richard Sharpe is sent into this volatile situation in advance on a mission as a bodyguard for Captain Lavisser, who has orders to follow up on intelligence that the Danish Crown Prince is amenable to a bribe. Of course, the reader is aware from an opening scene that this intelligence was faked by Lavisser himself who is a French agent and intends to abscond with the £43,000 in gold while opening the city to the French. What follows is an exciting ride through intrigues, betrayals and battles. This book packs a bit more punch than the previous, where Sharpe's actions were somewhat constrained by being at sea.The overall tone of the book is not as up-beat as some of the earlier stories. When Sharpe enters the book, we learn immediately that Grace died in childbirth and Sharpe is left rudderless: he cannot deal with her absence; he had spent his fortune on property for the family they were starting, only to lose it to her family's lawyers afterwards; he does not fit in as an officer because of his background and sees no future in the Army. The subplot of this story is Sharpe coming to terms with all of this, emerging at the end still sad, but able to let Grace go and throw himself back into life an infanty officer. In addition to Sharpe's personal troubles, new layers (darker layers) are added to his personality as he watches, appalled, the slaughter of the helpless Danes, full of contempt for those who make strategic policy.A good read.
    • 4/5
      Ah, Sharpie. Our hero is grieving the loss of his love Lady Grace, their child, all his money and the fact that his new rank means that he's despised as an upstart. To get over his troubles, he engages in a bit of vengeful murder and theft, some daring espionage/spy work, and the romancing of a charming Danish widow, whose disapproving father happens to be a British agent in denial about his own peril. This occurs during the regretable siege and fire bombing of Copenhagen by the British in 1807. If I hadn't visited Copenhagen last year I might have believed that Cornwell had exaggerated the level of destruction. It is today a beautiful city and though the rest of the world may have forgotten this shameful assault the Danes are still talking about it. Cornwell did his research. Clouter makes an appearance, though missing a few fingers, and we briefly meet the future Sgt. Harper stealing a chicken. Although Sharpe doesn't save the city, or in the long run the lady, he manages to replenish his pockets and impresses enough of the right people that his career is certainly about to take off.