The White Company cover

The White Company

Rating 4.1
Word count
812K words
Chapters
82

Tags

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The White Company by Arthur Conan DoyleAuthor: Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: May 1, 1997

Editor's review

This is a historical novel by Conan Doyle written outside the Sherlock Holmes series. Set against the backdrop of the fourteenth-century Anglo-French wars, it tells of a young nobleman who joins the White Company and travels to Spain to fight. The book offers a detailed portrayal of chivalry, battle scenes, and medieval society, with a steady pace and clear character relationships, demonstrating Doyle's skill in historical narrative. This is the English electronic edition released by Project Gutenberg, in the original English, suitable for readers who wish to explore Doyle's non-detective works. While reading, note how the author uses the historical setting to discuss loyalty, honor, and personal growth, and consider comparing it with British historical novels of the same period. As it is lengthy and contains many historical terms, readers with some foundation in English are advised before starting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who like Conan Doyle but want to read works other than Sherlock Holmes
  • Those interested in medieval European warfare and chivalric themes
  • Readers with intermediate or higher English reading ability willing to read a long work in the original
  • History enthusiasts who want to understand fourteenth-century Anglo-French relations through fiction

Not a good fit for

  • Sherlock Holmes readers expecting only detective mystery stories
  • Those just beginning English reading who may struggle with historical terms
  • Readers who prefer fast-paced, suspense-driven modern narratives

Reading tips

  1. Familiarize yourself with the basic background of the fourteenth-century Anglo-French wars before starting; historical terms will be easier to understand.
  2. Read the opening chapters first to gauge the language difficulty, then decide whether to read the whole book or selected battle passages.
  3. Prepare a simple character relationship chart noting the factions of the main characters to help follow the plot.
  4. Use parallel reading or dictionary tools alongside the English original; no need to look up every word—keep your reading rhythm.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82

FAQ

Is this book related to the Sherlock Holmes series?
Not directly. This is a historical novel by Conan Doyle set during the fourteenth-century Anglo-French wars. The characters and plot are independent of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories, and readers do not need to have read the detective series first.
How difficult is the English?
As a late nineteenth-century English historical novel, it has long sentences and many terms related to warfare and chivalry. It is generally suitable for readers with intermediate or higher English reading proficiency. Beginners may try the first few chapters to see whether they are comfortable.
What are the features of this edition?
This is a free electronic edition released by Project Gutenberg, in the original English and in the public domain. It is convenient to read and search on electronic devices, but it has no modern annotations or introduction, so readers need to supplement the historical background themselves.

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About the author

Arthur Conan Doyle (Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930) was a British writer best known for creating the detective Sherlock Holmes. The library records list his birth and death years and nationality as unknown, and public information is limited, so his biography is not speculated upon here. The collection contains 95 of his works, including The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Sign of the Four, along with different editions and multilingual translations. His writing is distinguished by rigorous logical deduction, vivid detective characters, and tight narrative pacing; he shaped and deeply influenced the modern detective fiction tradition, and Sherlock Holmes has become a classic figure in popular culture, still widely adapted and read today.