The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the on the nature of the conflict. The historical story. The What challenges were faced? How did the war affect them? And what does it tell us about the particular war, the particular writer, and maybe even war itself.

In 1900, three British writers went off to war.

This was the heyday of British imperialism.

Wars were anything from brief skirmishes to dragged out affairs, and we were not yet in the world

of catastrophic global atrocities that the 20th century would soon see.

The world was in a transition with steam ships and

railroads and telegraphs making distinct changes from, say, the days of Napoleon.

The war was the second Boer War, the Anglo-Borer War, which has mostly been lost to the fog of time.

The writers, or at least two of our three, are more famous than the war, I would say.

We know their details better better Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the

creator of Sherlock Holmes Rudyard Kipling author of the jungle book and Kim and if

our third author Mary Kingsley was a household name in her day, a zealous reformer and famous lecturer.

All three went to war to witness for themselves the Imperial Project and perhaps inadvertently to stumble into a horror show they had not

expected to find.

Our guest today, Sarah Laffinue, has written a book about their exploits. We will have that story today on the history of literature. the world. The Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson. The Boer War!

Who would have thought it would be such a good backdrop

for our story of literature?

But there it was, ripe for the taking

and our author today, reached up and plucked it.

Her book is called Something of

themselves Kipling Kingsley, Conan Doyle and the Anglo-Bower War. We will have her

here in a minute to tell us all about this turbulent period in British imperial history.

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