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 Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
    Audiobook13 hours

    Sharpe’s Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805

    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*

    Cape Trafalgar, October 1805
     
    Heading home on a merchant ship from India, Ensign Richard Sharpe finds himself on a far more dangerous journey than he could have anticipated, for war brews at sea. The formidable French navy have destroyed the British blockade and face an outnumbered but formidable foe: Admiral Nelson.

    Sharpe’s meeting aboard the Calliope with the beautiful Lady Grace Hale turns quickly to obsession, but he finds unexpected enemies and deep treachery amongst his fellow passengers. And as they approach Cape Trafalgar and the enemy fleet comes into view, ready to fight in one of the most glorious but deadly clashes of the war is Sharpe . . .

    ‘A master storyteller’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 26, 2014
    ISBN9780007582310
    Unavailable
    Sharpe’s Trafalgar: The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
    Author

    Bernard Cornwell

    BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of over fifty novels, including the acclaimed New York Times bestselling Saxon Tales, which serve as the basis for the hit Netflix series The Last Kingdom. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod and in Charleston, South Carolina.

    More audiobooks from Bernard Cornwell

    Related to Sharpe’s Trafalgar

    Titles in the series (1)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Aug 5, 2021

      profanisaurus@viz.co.uk aroma diffuser 1. n. A scientific device that breaks “essential oils” down into smaller molecules, dispersing them into the air for a pleasant or calming effect on the gullible. 2. n. The arsehole. Barbie’s minge sim. Somethin

      8 min read

    • Article

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows

      Nov 1, 2022

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows
      11 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      May 18, 2023

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Part Sixteen The Meeting With Count Ferrari

      Jul 8, 2022

      THE INTRIGUING CASE OF A MURDER IN PARIS Count Ferrari’s regal residence was a solid half hour walk according to the conscientious concierge at Noella’s hotel. Apparently it would be a mucky, muddy trudge through the Paris streets, heading south from

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Pre-loved Treasure House

      Oct 14, 2019

      A Pre-loved Treasure House
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Secret

      Sep 28, 2021

      The Secret
      6 min read

    • Article

      Howl Palace

      Sep 15, 2019

      Last week, I finally had to put Howl Palace up for sale. Years of poor financial planning had led to this decision, and I tried to take some comfort in my agent’s belief in a buyer who might show up with an all-cash offer. My agent is a highly organi

      25 min read

    • Article

      Dance For The Patch Man

      Mar 16, 2020

      Dance For The Patch Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Sep 1, 2023

      Amber accord of Shalimar arrived before her into a room set like a scene from Scheherezade: Oriental rugs, brass lamps mantled with jujube glass. She entered slightly out of breath, one end of a silk sari afloat behind her, embraced my sister, called

      2 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s profanisaurus

      Oct 13, 2022

      Roger’s profanisaurus
      9 min read

    • Article

      Roger's PROFANISAURUS

      Nov 19, 2020

      Roger's PROFANISAURUS
      8 min read

    • Article

      Hans Hedgehog A GERMAN FOLK TALE

      Jan 1, 2019

      Hans Hedgehog A GERMAN FOLK TALE
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Nightingale

      May 1, 2019

      The Nightingale
      10 min read

    • Article

      Ronan The Librarian

      Oct 1, 2022

      Ronan The Librarian
      2 min read

    • Article

      Armatree HOTEL

      Jul 17, 2019

      Armatree HOTEL
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Symmetry Of Ruby Margot

      Feb 6, 2020

      The Symmetry Of Ruby Margot
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Scarlet PEBBLE

      Feb 14, 2024

      The Scarlet PEBBLE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Country Diary

      Feb 1, 2023

      Country Diary
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Herero

      Nov 29, 2022

      The Herero
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Refusal To Mourn The Deaths, By Gunfire, Of Three Men In Brooklyn

      Jan 1, 2019

      And at times, didn’t the whole countrytry to break his skin?—Tim Seibles You strike your one good match to watch its bloomand jook, a swan song just before a nightwind comes to snuff it. That’s the kind of dayit’s been. Your Black & Mild, now, useles

      7 min read

    • Article

      River Monster

      Aug 11, 2019

      River Monster
      14 min read

    • Article

      Standing On Ceremony

      Dec 4, 2022

      Standing On Ceremony
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sharpe’s Trafalgar

    4.5/5

    49 ratings18 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This adventure is not as strong as other books in this series because of the pages devoted to the lengthy, clandestine shipboard romance occupying Sharpe's thoughts and action. When the battle begins at Trafalgar, Cornwell (and Sharpe) rise to their usual high standard or battle description and excitement.
    • 4/5
      I had not read a Bernard Cornwell book in quite some time. It was nice to be back with an old friend. This is the fourth book in the Sharpe series and this one has him on board a ship in his return home from India. It just so happens that his ship sails right into the famous Battle of Trafalgar. This book follows the Cornwell formula in that we have good guys and bad guys and some characters in between who all work up into a climactic battle where Sharpe comes out on top in the end. Even with that said, I enjoyed this one more than the first three in the Sharpe series - perhaps because the story was the English versus the French rather the India setting of the first three.
    • 4/5
      Normally, I would like to read series in order, but in Cornwell' very popular Sharpe series, he is writing them out of chronological sequence, so that' impossible. This one takes place fourth sequentially, but is the most recent of seventeen to be published. Cornwell is prolific and a master storyteller.

      The story opens with Sharpe in India, having been there several years but now about to return to England having joined up with the 95th Rifles. He' an ensign, a low ranking officer promoted out of the ranks. Being wise to the ways of crooks, he helps out an English naval officer who had been cheated out of several hundred pounds. Apparently it was the practice of travelers to bring their own furniture when traveling by ship and there existed a thriving business reselling furniture of those who had recently arrived from England and no longer needed the equipment they had used on the voyage.

      The ploy was to sell the furniture, promising delivery to the ship before it left, then have the warehouse burn down and the owner ostensibly killed. In reality, he escaped, as did all the items in the warehouse, and the goods were then sold again by a cousin, both of the culprits making a tidy profit. As the first seller was supposed to be dead, there was no legal recourse. Sharpe sniffed out the plot and helped himself and the naval officer to recoup their money. Befriending Captain Chase, the naval officer, Sharpe finds himself on Chase's ship the Pucelle, a seventy-four, and in a chase after the Revenant a French warship carrying a spy back to France with some important information related to the India campaign.

      Rake that he is, Sharpe soon is heavily involved with Lady Grace, wife of the haughty Lord Williams, sleeping with her ostensibly behind everyone's back. Lord Williams' secretary Braithwaite becomes aware of their involvement and Sharpe kills him, making it look as if Braithwaite had falling down a ladder. Sharpe would like to kill Williams, too, but apparently his conscience prohibits killing those higher on the social ladder. Grace is soon pregnant, but before an immediate resolution, the Pucelle and the Revenant, find themselves in the midst of the British and French fleets at Trafalgar. Cornwell is a master storyteller.
    • 4/5
      Another good tale, well written, well researched.
    • 4/5
      This is the fourth book in the Sharpe series in internal chronology but was written almost a decade after the original books set during the Peninsular campaigns. In this book, Sharpe's been promoted to junior office rank and is on his way back to the UK to take up a position in the 95th Rifles. After having discovered a scam with the belongings he'd bought for the trip back home and helping out a Royal Navy captain who'd fallen foul of the same scam, Sharpe's on board an East Indiaman where he meets a man with an important future back home, that man's very beautiful and apparently cold wife and someone Sharpe had met under another name. The East Indiaman is taken by the French after being separated from the convoy she was travelling in and Sharpe is not looking forward to the impending imprisonment in Madagascar (though that cold wife proved not to be that cold after all...). By one of those strange twists of fate that make great books, Sharpe and the rest of the prisoners are rescued by a British Man-of-War and commanded by his friend. Sharpe is prevailed upon to travel home aboard the battleship as the captain chases the French ship, also heading to its home port. Evenly matched the two ships stay within sight for most of the journey but looks as if the French ship will beat Sharpe and his companions aboard the with details that would inflame India as the two powers vied for dominance throughout the world. but The two vessels reach Europe just as the pivotal naval battle of the next hundred years is about to be joined. This is a rollicking read and, as usual, Sharpe finds a woman to share his bed with while Cornwell once more blinds us with his research, though the best bits about the actual battle are to be found in the historical notes where Cornwell is very scathing about the French Admiral and his actions :-)
    • 3/5
      Bernard Cornwell's writing is like a jeep: clumsy, not very nice to look at, lacking smooth lines and elegant transitions......but it sure is a helluva lot of fun!The Sharpe Series is my guilty pleasure. As I pointed out with the jeep simile, the writing won't sate the literary side of me, but the part of me that wants to read just for fun is usually happy.That said, Sharpe's Trafalgar isn't one of my favorites. The writing seems a bit clumsier than usual, Sharpe does a couple things that I find barbaric and ignoble even for him, and, of course, there is the token I'm-beautiful-and-above-you-but-I'll-screw-you-anyway woman for Sharpe to fall in 'love' with. (How many times does the man fall in love, anyway?)But the story is a fun transition piece, following Sharpe as he leaves India and heads home to England to join the new regiment, the 95th Rifles, which is what the Sharpe character is best known for; this is how Cornwell manages to sneak his soldier onto a naval ship for a book or two. I really wanted to throw Lady Grace overboard--I almost always feel this way about Cornwell's female characters--but it was a decent enough story. And Captain Chase was fairly adorable.
    • 5/5
      Sharpe’s Trafalgar is everything I’ve come to expect from Cornwell. And to me, this sanguine line says it all, “The good soldier was cock of a blood-soaked dunghill, and Richard Sharpe was good.” Our hero is once again caught and thrust into the middle of history and this time it’s one of the greatest naval battles of the 19th century. A must read and I will definitely be devouring the next edition soon enough.
    • 4/5
      Nof feasible but a good Sharpe Story. That's what makes fiction so interesting
    • 4/5
      In spite of the Economist's claim that Bernard Cornwell is "the direct heir to Patrick O'Brian," this book has less substance, although it certainly kept my interest. I'm also not happy with all of Mr. Sharpe's moral choices. But I learned a lot about living conditions on a ship---I wouldn't want to travel on one even first class---and how to prepare for a sea battle. Reading historical fiction means that you know in advance that Nelson will not survive; his telling Sharpe that he (Nelson) will have completed his life's work gives you the feeling that there were no more important naval battles after Trafalgar. (Not so, says my husband.) Nelson is portrayed as a holy man: he is totally present when he interacts with someone.
    • 5/5
      This one is a bit different from the other books in the series in that most of it takes place at sea. Sharpe is on his way back to England,having been based in India for some time. He sails on the Calliope under Captain Peculiar Cromwell.After several thrilling adventures he finds himself in the midst of the Battle of Trafalgar where needless to say, all hell breaks loose.
    • 4/5
      The actual battle is just the last bit of the book, which is fine. Sharpe has to take a ship back to England & Cromwell paints a logical picture of why Sharpe, an army soldier, would wind up in this battle. He admits he had no real business there, but it works well & gave me a visceral picture of life on board the ships of the time as well as covering this pivotal battle of the era.

      Life on a ship of this time was rough. Sharpe, as an ensign, is in the perfect position to show us all aspects & there is quite a difference between what a crewman or steerage passenger can expect compared to the officers & rich passengers. The way fighting was handled was also covered completely. Horrifying is probably the only word that really covers the whole experience. Since Carnival Cruises have been much in the news, the comparison is obvious & provides a laughable counterpoint. Our expectations have come a long way in 2 centuries.
    • 5/5
      In 1805, Ensign Richard Sharpe is on his way back to England from India on board an East India Company fast merchant ship, the Calliope. Thanks to treachery, the ship is taken by a French warship, the Revenant. The captain of the Calliope joins the French cause--along with Sharpe's precious hoard of jewels. The Calliope is soon recaptured by the Pucelle, a 74 gun warship commanded by Captain Joel Chase of the Royal Navy, whom Sharpe rescued and befriended before leaving India. Because they believe that Revenant has as one of its passengers a dangerous French diplomat, the Pucelle gives chase over the Indian Ocean and into the Atlantic--in time to join Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson at Traflagar in one of history's most decisive naval battles. The Pucelle and the Revenant finally meet in a climactic struggle.I found the book, unlike its predecessors to be slow going in the beginning, due to a lack of immediate action. In addition, Cornwell uses Sharpe's ignorance, both as someone who has risen from the ranks and as a rather insignificant Army officer to explain the back story and the necessary information about ships and naval maneuvers. While believable, it becomes repetitious as a device and slows the story down. There are some very well done exceptions, such as the dinner held by the Calliope's captain for the upscale passengers in which the military and political positions of Napoleon, his allies and his enemies are well described.The chase of the Revenant is enlivened by a highly dangerous romance between Sharpe and the wife of an aristocratic diplomat. The consequences of such a liason between a member of the nobility and a commoner are nicely brought out in a variety of ways, such as attempted blackmail by the diplomat's jealous secretary. None of that stops Sharpe, of course, and he has far more success in the romantic line in this book than he has in previous ones, where that aspect at times seemed like an afterthought--stuck in the story because Sharpe should have a sex life.The high point of the story and the only reason for the book's existence is the Batttle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. Cornwell spends about a quarter of the book on it and does an outstanding job. We get a very good feel for Nelson himself and for the actual situation and his daring maneuvers. The description of the battle is superb. O'Brian did an excellent job of writing about the carnage of naval battles in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and Cornwell is just as adept if not more so. In his writing, Cornwell does not imitate O'Brian but has his own voice; we get a view of the chaos and death from a different angle, so to speak, and it is excellent. In fact, I think it is superior to O'Brian's writing in this respect and this respect only.The historical afterword is as usual excellent and has some nice irony in it.At the current time, I can't think of anyone who writes the historical action-adventure better than Cornwell does. The pace of the book picks up about the end of the first third of the book, and by the battle itself, it is so intense and so absorbing that I couldn't put the book down until I finished it. There's no better recommendation.
    • 4/5
      My favorite of the four Sharpe novels I've read. Poor Admiral Nelson!
    • 4/5
      I always wished that CS Forester would have allowed Horatio Hornblower to take part at Trafalgar, this'll have to do instead. Actually, Cornwell helps me out quite a bit with obscure naval terminology - since Sharpe is a novice we get much more explanation and definitions than Forester ever provides.Two gripes about this story. First, it takes quite a while for the action to heat up - but once it starts it doesn't stop . Nobody portrays brutal action better than Cornwell. Second, the whole subplot (I won't spoil it if you haven't read the book). It seems that Sharpe is, well sharp enough to get out of jams using methods other than what he resorts to here.I enjoyed the character of Captain Chase, his outgoing manner and easygoing way with underlings directly contrasts with Hornblower. I must say I think I like Chase better! Overall, a fine, if not outstanding work. Can't wait to see what trouble Sharpe gets into next!
    • 4/5
      OK, I'll admit, I've been putting off reading this one just because the very idea of it seemed ludicrous and forced to me. As has been very firmly established, our man Richard Sharpe is a daring, lucky and resourceful infantry officer. Infantry. The guy can barely ride a horse, but he's the devil in a red coat on foot. But see, Trafalgar was a naval battle. As in between ships. Admiral Nelson. Sailing maneuvers (or lack thereof: just go right at 'em). Ramming. Boarding parties. Being on the water.

      So how could Sharpe have a Trafalgar that wasn't preposterous and contrived?

      Answer: well, he can't: but the contriving minimizes the preposterousness and soon the reader forgets her pre-book scoffing altogether. After all, Richard does have to get from India back to England somehow, and we readers have already swallowed his just happening to be the unknown man who killed the Tippoo Sultan and the man who "really" found the way into Gawilgur.

      Anyway, lesson well learned: always trust Uncle Bernard.

      Speaking of things we learn, Sharpe's Trafalgar is also where we learn, not only that Sharpe has sea legs, but that he doesn't require the heat of battle to be a killer. Oh, we've had hints of this before, witness his attempt in the first book to feed his Wile E. Coyote nemesis to a tiger, but what we see in his shipboard relationship with his would-be blackmailer*, Mister Braithwaite, shows new depths of cold-bloodedness. Sharpe has never known an even-handed, just application of society's rules and laws, so he doesn't feel particularly bound by them. Dude.

      And Sharpe has a lot to learn as well, here, for he has in the person of his friend Captain Chase (whom he rescued from a nasty crew on land in the novel's prologue) an example of leadership like he's not seen before. His Pucelle**, on which Sharpe finds himself after he's sort-of-rescued from a captured Indiaman, is a great big ship of the line, a floating artillery battery, and, that rarity of rarities, a happy ship. How does he do that?

      "Sharpe watched Chase, for he reckoned he had still a lot to learn about the subtle business of leading men. He saw that the captain did not secure his authority by recourse to punishment, but rather by expecting high standards and rewarding them. He also hid his doubts."

      From what I know about Sharpe's future with a rifle company in the Napoleonic wars (these novels have such cultural currency that it's almost as impossible not to know Sharpe's going to end up a lieutenant in Spain as it is not to know what Rosebud is), these are good lessons for him to be getting, very important for his transformation from a gutter rat whose first (chronological) scene in fiction is of him getting flogged to a man who inspires loyalty.

      The scenes with Sharpe and Chase are also a nice antidote to the soap opera adultery plot that comprises more than half this book.*** Ugh.

      But the real star here is the famous naval battle, into which the Pucelle more or less stumbles. Cornwell gives Patrick O'Brian a run for his ramming, gunning, sailing money here; one could fully imagine the Surprise being somewhere in the smoke (but of course we know it wasn't. Sillies. The Surprise was as real as... as the Pucelle!). The action is described in loving detail, with an emphasis on its chaotic nature, for we are seeing it from the perspective of an infantry soldier serving as an "honorary marine" who barely understands what's going on.

      And yes, Cornwell succumbs to the temptation to substitute his fictional ship for the real one that rescued Admiral Nelson's flagship just as the French were about to board her, and also to the temptation to make Sharpe the person Nelson finds most interesting at his pre-battle breakfast. But I ask you: who wouldn't? Scenes such as those are a big part of why historical fiction is fun, if one isn't simply writing a fictionalized biography of an actual historical figure the way, say, Jean Plaidy does. But yes, I rolled my eyes a bit. But I was also smiling. It's a Sharpe book, after all.

      It's just not the best Sharpe book. Hey, they can't all be.

      Onward to Europe!

      *Of course the blackmail is over a woman. Cornwell knows and respects the principle of Chekhov's Gun; if a pretty woman shows up in the first act of a Sharpe novel, Sharpe is going to become her lover, even if, as in this case, she is married to an obnoxious nobleman.

      **"Pucelle" in English is "virgin." Ho ho!

      **The other half, at least until the Pucelle stumbles across the battle at Trafalgar, is a chase plot. While Sharpe is schtupping the nobleman's wife in every unseen corner of the ship that isn't too disgusting, the ship is chasing a French one, the Revenant, to which Sharpe's frenemy and also a suspected spy jumped after it took the first ship that Sharpe and co embarked on, the Calliope. It's all very exciting and Patrick O'Brian-ish, and I would have much preferred it without all the tedious adultery, but I'm just sort of like that, you know?
    • 4/5
      I was somewhat curious to see how Richard Sharpe, ensign in His Majesty's Army, was going to figure into the great naval action of Trafalgar, but Cornwell does a very slick job of making it seem only mildly coincidental.Aside from my enjoyment of the Sharpe series in general, this book was interesting in another way. Since the entire book is a naval adventure, it made it easy to compare it directly to the other series about the Napoleonic Wars to which I am currently listening: Patrick O'Brian's stories featuring Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.They are quite distinct. Cornwell doesn't give much feel for the period beyond the obvious one of the novel's setting. This is something at which O'Brian excels; his books are full of the little details and glimpses of life that give the reader a excellent sense of the period. On the other hand, Cornwell's books are full of adventure and action. Though I enjoy them immensely, my attention can wander from an O'Brian book if I'm tired or distracted. No so one of Cornwell's—there is rarely a dull moment in them.Another excellent adventure in the series. I recommend it to any who like historical military fiction or action stories.
    • 3/5
      the machinery creaks a bit in this book. RS is at sea, and a number of co-incidences to get him to the battle are enormous. Not very believable. I may have been too kind in my ratings.
    • 5/5
      As I work my way chronologically through the Sharpe series, I find that this is my favorite so far. Sharpe always manages to land in the middle of the most dramatic historical events, rubbing elbows with the famous, despite his low station. After having served for years in India he is making his way home to join a new rifle unit. On the way he gets robbed, betrayed, engages in a transoceanic sea chase, engages in a clandestine love affair, gets invited to dinner with Lord Nelson and ends up in the Battle of Trafalgar. There he helps to save the day once again. Great fun.