The Trumpet-Major
Encyclopedia
The Trumpet-Major is a novel by Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

 published in 1880.

The heroine, Anne Garland, is pursued by three suitors: John Loveday, the trumpet major in a British regiment, honest and loyal; his brother Bob, a flighty sailor; and Festus Derriman, the cowardly nephew of the local squire.

The setting is the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

, and it seems Miss Garland has a penchant for men in uniform. Of the two brothers, John fights with Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

 in the Peninsular War
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...

, and Bob serves with Nelson at Trafalgar
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....

.

Unusually for a Hardy novel, most of the characters live happily ever after; however, the ending is debatably an ominous one.

Operatic version

Thomas Hardy's novel provided the source of Alun Hoddinott
Alun Hoddinott
Alun Hoddinott CBE , was a Welsh composer of classical music, one of the first to receive international recognition.-Life and works:...

's opera The Trumpet Major, with libretto by Myfanwy Piper
Myfanwy Piper
Mary Myfanwy Piper was a British art critic and opera librettist.Myfanwy Evans was born into a Welsh family in London. She attended North London Collegiate School and read English Language and Literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford. She married the artist John Piper, with whom she lived in rural...

, first performed in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

on 1 April 1981.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK