The Adventures of a Soldier or, Memoirs of Edward Costello, K.S.F. Formerly a non-commissioned officer in the Rifle Brigade, and late Captain in the British Legion. pub. Henry Colborn London 1841. First edition. 

Octavo. 410 pp plus publisher's catalogue. Original publisher's green ribbed cloth, decorated in blind, skilfully re-backed preserving original spine. Separation of the last four pages of the publisher's catalogue at the rear at the gutter, and occasional gapping of signatures but the book is solidly-bound, though two leaves, pp11-14 are a little loose. The endpapers may be newish but if they are they match very well. One or two pages with short, closed tears to the margins. The book sits pretty square. A very decent copy of the first edition in the original cloth of a rare memoir by an Irish soldier in the Peninsula. 

Born in Mountmellick, County Laois, in 1788, Costello starts with his early childhood but soon we are with him as he enlists in the Dublin Militia in 1806. In Hythe in Kent in 1809 he witnesses the sorry state of the army returning to England from the famous retreat from Corunna, the Dunkirk of its day. Amongst them is one Private Tom Plunkett, admired by all for his courage, and whom Costello, over a few pages, provides a vivid sketch, especially of his flogging for drunkenness. Once in Spain, Costello finds himself almost flogged over a stolen flagon of wine. He manages to escape a tight situation at the siege of Almeida but is wounded receiving a musket ball in the leg. This vivid memoir conveys a strong sense of the utter brutality of war,  the looting, the drunkenness, full of odd and tragic vignettes such as the officer shot in the neck, who appears to have escaped death only to cough and open the wound neighbouring his carotid artery. By contrast, there are moments when enmity is set aside, and common humanity is restored, such as when Costello steps in to save a group of  wounded Frenchmen being clubbed to death by a 'gaunt, ghastly figure in a cloak.' At the storming of Badajoz, he volunteers for the 'Forlorn Hope', the detachments who make an initial assault, apt to sustain heavy casualties. The horrors he describes here somehow surviving the obstacles and the musket and grapeshot which kills most of his comrades is particularly vivid. At the end of this episode, he is on the verge of shooting a dead helpless French soldier in revenge for his dead comrades, but the man falls to his knees and Costello recovers his senses and spares the man. His career in the army takes him to Waterloo, and then after returning home to England several hard years before signing up with the British Legion in 1835 which was sent to Spain in support of Queen Isabella II during the Carlist Wars. To my mind, having handled a number of such memoirs, Costello's is certainly one of the best, conjuring up characters with economy, and bringing the reader right into the action.