Frances Isabella Duberly – författare

The diarist Mrs Henry Duberly (1829-1902), born Frances Locke, came to public attention through her Journal Kept during the Russian War, an 1855 account (also reissued in this series) of her experiences accompanying her husband's regiment in the Crimea, often as the only woman present. Her descriptions of military action - including the cavalry charges at Balaklava - and the hardships and gossip of army life, made it a popular success, although a dedication to Queen Victoria was declined. This 1859 volume narrates the Hussars' subsequent posting to India during the Mutiny. Describing the practicalities and privations of a 2,028 mile march through Rajputana from Bombay, and culminating in an account of the battle of Gwalior, including the news of Rani Lakshmi Bai's suicide, it illuminates the nature of military life in this tense period of Indian history, as well as the role of women on both sides of the conflict.

Frances Isabella Duberly (1829-1902) accompanied her officer husband to the Crimea as the only woman on the front line. Her letters home to her sister, highlighting the incompetence and negligence of the generals, and describing the appalling conditions in which the men were fighting, appeared anonymously in the press and, along with W. H. Russell's reports, helped stir public opinion against the prosecution of the war. This reaction persuaded Duberly to ask her brother-in-law to edit her diary, and it provoked a sensation when published in 1855. Although she occasionally conveys some of the elation of victory, the journal is more often a stark and disturbing document: following the battle of Balaclava she writes that 'even my closed eyelids were filled with the ruddy glare of blood'. No history of this brutal campaign can ignore this journal, and it stands comparison with any account of the horrors of war.