Redcoat Captain: A Story of That Country

That Country sounds like a place you've already visited in a dream. Alfred Ollivant's 1907 fantasy follows Tiny, a Redcoat Captain with a gentle heart, as he navigates a world where soldiers are gentleman, villains have ridiculous titles, and love might just be the bravest campaign of all. Baby, the daughter of a merry lady, is Tiny's 'little friend' - and if you're over eight years old, you'll suspect she might become something more. The Major-General provides pomp and comic relief, the Commander-in-Chief looms as the story's threat, and the rules of this enchanted land unfold as Tiny prepares for both battle and what he hopes will be a wedding. Ollivant writes with the kind of unselfconscious charm that modern readers might find either impossibly quaint or genuinely disarming. For readers who want to remember what it felt like to believe in a world where soldiers dance and villains are theatrical and love is simple, this is a small, strange, wonderful relic of Edwardian whimsy.