Sources of Information and Inspiration
for Colonial-era Gaming

The Major General welcomes additions to these lists. Mail your suggestion to headquarters. Include your name, and a very short description of the book or film.

New or newly revised entries are in Red Type

Pictorial and History Books
The books on this list are primarily visual inspiration for figure painting and modelbuilding, rather than textual history -- reflecting the interests of a gaming group whose members are all artists of one sort or another.

War on the Nile - Britain, Egypt and the Sudan, 1882-1898
 Michael Barthorp, Blandford Press, 1984

The Zulu War - A Pictorial History
 Michael Barthorp, Blandford Press, 1980

The North-West Frontier - British India and Afghanistan: A Pictorial History, 1839-1947
 Michael Barthorp, Blandford Press,

Tel El-Kebir 1882 - Wolseley's Conquest of Egypt
 Donald Featherstone, Osprey, 1993

Khartoum 1885 - General Gordon's Last Stand
 Donald Featherstone, Osprey, 1993

Omdurman 1898 - Kitchener's Victory in the Sudan
 Donald Featherstone, Osprey, 1993

Weapons and Equipment of the Victorian Soldier
 Donald Featherstone; Blandford Press, 1978

The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships
 Tony Gibbons, Salamander Books (UK), Crescent Books, (USA),1983.

The Colonial Wars Source Book
 Philip J. Haythornthwaite, Arms and Armor Press, 1995

The Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 - A Pictorial History
 Johannes Meintjes, Macdonald and Jane's, 1976

Illustrated Encyclopedia of 19th Century Firearms
 Major F. Myatt MC; Salamander Books Ltd. (UK); Crescent Books (US); 1979

Victoria's Victories - Seven Classic Battles of the British Army, 1849-1884
 Peter C. Smith, Spellmount Ltd. (UK) and Hippocrene Books (USA), 1987

Tanks and other Armored Fighting Vehicles, 1900-1918
 B.T.White, illustrated by John Wood, Blandford Press (UK), Macmillan (US),1970.

Armies of the World 1854-1914
 David Woodward; GP Putnam's Sons, 1978

The Defence of Duffer's Drift
 Captain E. D. Swinton, D.S.O., R.E., (later Major General Sir Ernest Swinton, K.B.E., C.B., D.S.O.)
 1904, most recently reprinted by the Avery Publishing Group, 1986
 Currently published online.
A short, entertaining, classic textbook of small-unit tactical thinking. In a series of dreams, a young officer learns the right way - and many wrong ways - to defend a ford during the Boer War.

Bob Cordery recommends the following:
Go To Your God Like A Soldier - The British Soldier Fighting For Empire 1837 - 1902
 Ian Knight; Greenhill Books/Stackpole Books, 1996
The Victorian and Edwardian Army from Old Photographs
 John Fabb & W Y Carman; B T Batsford Ltd, 1975 (reprinted 1984)
The Victorian Army In Photographs
 David Clammer; David and Charles, 1975

Rick Norton enthusiastically recommends:
Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice
 C. E. Callwell; Univ of Nebraska Press, 1996 (originally published 1906)
"The British Army's recommended 'how-to' text for dealing with 'irregular' opponents, covering everything from logistics to tactics to battle descriptions. A 'must have' for every colonial gamer. Unintentional insights into the mores and characters of the time are an unexpected bonus."- R.N.

Raymond E. Churchfield recommends:
Mister Kipling's Army
Queen Victoria's Little Wars
Eminent Victorian Soldiers - All by Byron Farwell
"Fond descriptions of the folly and glory of Victorian arms." - R.E.C.

Jim Shaner recommends:
The History Atlas of Africa
 Samuel Kasule, Macmillan Continental History Atlases Series
 "Lots of maps, pictures and useful information for colonial games." - JS
Colenso 1899; The Boer War in Natal
 Ian Knight. Osprey Campaign Series #38
Deutsche Luftschiffe (German Airships)
 Heinz J. Nowarra, available from Schiffer Publishing of Pennsylvania
 "Part of Waffen Arsenal's 'Sonderheft' series. 1872-1937 with emphasis on WWI. It has many line drawings and photos." -JS
Skoda Heavy Guns
 Michal Prasil, available from Schiffer Publishing of Pennsylvania
  "Very useful for scratchbuilding coastal and naval weapons. The mobile battery turrets suggest ideas for landships or VSF Fortresses. The most interesting though, are the gas-electric road/rail trains,developed in 1908, to transport the 200+ ton weapons."

Craig Robertson recommends:
Young Winston's Wars
 "An out of print collection of Churchill's original press dispatches from the Northwest Frontier, the Sudan, and South Africa. Worth the read just for the NW Frontier section - a solid, first-hand account of the routine tactics of warfare in that corner of the Empire." -CR

Michael Feuster recommends:
Armies of the World, 1854-1914
 David Woodward; GB Putnam's Sons, 1978

Joe Mauloni recommends:
Battle for the Bundu; the First World War in East Africa
Charles Miller; Macmillan, 1974
"Right on the edge of the period, but with horse marines, big-game hunters stalking warships and Askaris battling Gurkhas in the bush it definitely has a Victorian flavor. Non-fiction and out of print, but readily available used."

Fiction
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. This classic novel of the 1920s explores whether a conquering and a conquered people can ever salvage friendship from the imperial relationship. Brits, noble and ignoble, take sides when a troubled English tourist accuses a solicitous Moslem doctor of attacking her. Though the book broke ground in condemning British prejudices, later critics have charged that Forster exhibits his own style of contempt for Indians and that he misunderstands Indian culture. Even if they are right to some extent, the book is a beautifully written story and a thoughtful and useful description of the colonial relationship.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. An unemployed seaman secures a position as a Congo riverboat captain and finds himself mired in the contemptible failure of European enterprise in the colonial tropics. His voyage into the interior becomes a political and psychological allegory of the tension between the primal and the 'civilized' sides of the human soul. The book is elusive, disturbing and ambiguous. It has been criticized both as unfairly anti-European and anti-African, but it should be remembered that, before he wrote the novel, Conrad had actually 'been there, done that.'

The Flashman series, by George MacDonald Fraser.
Stewart Johnson comments - "Very good, very funny, and historically accurate to boot. The first book contains one of the best descriptions of the retreat from Kabul I've read."
Bruce S.R. Lee comments - "Harry Flashman turns up in most of the monumental occasions of the Victorian era (both in fiction & 'history'), including - Prisoner of Zenda, Crimea, Indian Mutiny, Madagascar, American Civil War, etc. One of my favorite series."

Bob Cordery recommends:
The Richard Hannay novels, by John Buchan.
"His novels are full of characters who would fit well into a colonial wargame. The most suitable is probably Greenmantle, which deals with the rise of an Islamic leader who threatens to overthrow the grip of the Germans on the Turkish hierarchy during World War I."

David Kuligowski recommends:
Wilbur Smith's Ballantyne series, which traces a South African family from the1880s into the 20th Century.
"Flight of the Falcon is about Zouga Ballyntine, an elephant hunter and adventurer in what is to become Rhodesia.
Men of Men is about the diamond fields and the Lonbengula rebellion. Cecil Rhodes and Doc Jamison make appearances.
The Angels Weep deals with the undeclared war on the Boers and the Matabele rebellion.
The books are colorful, but also graphically violent and have some explicit sexual content."

Allen Hansen recommends:
Cry Wolf by Wilbur Smith "Two men sell the Ethiopians armored cars during Mussolini's 1935 invasion.. Excellent scenario ideas. Don't miss it!!!"

David Edgington recommends:
The novels of P.C. Wren: "Wren is best known for his Foreign Legion novels, such as Beau Geste. I'm currently reading The Spur of Pride (published as Man of a Ghost in England), which features a Sikh unit in Africa and on the Northwest Frontier. He does spin a good yarn."
There is a bibliography and biosketch of Wren on the web, and also samples of his Legion writing. Of his novels, only Beau Geste is still in print, but others are available at (usually) reasonable prices from Bibliofind and perhaps also from your public library.

Ken Natt recommends:
The Otto Prohaska turn of the century naval(ish) yarns by John Biggins.
A Sailor of Austria - "The ups and downs of a WWI U-boat commander. Great for background to things Austro Hungarian.  Includes toilets, camels, petrol poisoning and the trials of commanding a boat with crew of eleven speaking nine different languages."
The Emperor's Coloured Coat - "Confusingly, a prequel to the above. Prohaska learns to fly and gets involved in skulduggery leading up to Sarajevo. Also some good stuff in the Pacific."
The Double-Headed Eagle- "Prohaska in the airforce on the Italian front." 
Tomorrow the World - "A pre-prequel. Prohaska's cadet cruise.  This one is a gem for scenario ideas.  Read it. Laugh at the Penge Missionaries.  Buy Austrian sailor figures."

Garth Coogan recommends:
The Oswald Bastable Series, which was published as a collection in The Nomad of Time (a.k.a. A Nomad of the Time Streams), by Michael Moorcock.

The Warlord of the Air (1971) - "A British colonial officer of 1902 is cast forward in time to 1970...when dirigibles rule the air and the Raj still rules in India." The Land Leviathan (1974) The Steel Tsar (1981)

Before Armageddon (1975) and England Invaded (1977) both edited by Michael Moorcock- "A collection of pre-WWI military science fiction and tanks were still called land ironclads. Stories that can make one laugh or sit wide-eyed depending on their accuracy."

Don't overlook Public Libraries as a source for out-of-print books. Even if your local library does not have a particular title, it may be available for a small charge through the Interlibrary Loan program.

The Narrative Press specializes in print and e-book reprints of period "True First-Person Accounts of High Adventure," many of them Victorian-era. Exploration, hunting, military and scientific subjects are included. Titles are nicely sorted by region of the world.

Blackmask Online provides free electronic versions of all sorts of books. A check in the "Action Adventure" category shows almost 300 works by Kipling, Haggard, Burroughs, London, Mason, Mundy, and others.

The Online Books Page has a huge listing of books on various subjects, including period military texts, history books on exotic areas, and fiction by Victorian authors, all free and online.

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