Micah Clarke

This book tells the story of Micah Clarke's adventures. As a boy he follows his rather romantic notions of what it means to be a soldier and how to find adventure. But over the course of his career, adventure finds him, and it is not always quite as fun as Micah had pictured it to be - especially as he finds himself involved in a rebellion.

By : Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930)

01 - Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides 02 - Of My Going to School and of My Coming Thence 03 - Of Two Friends of my Youth 04 - Of the Strange Fish that we Caught at Spithead 05 - Of the Man with the Drooping Lids 06 - Of the Letter that came from the Lowlands 07 - Of the Horseman who rode from the West 08 - Of our Start for the War 09 - Of a Passage of Arms at the Blue Boar 10 - Of our Perilous Adventure on the Plain 11 - Of the Lonely Man and the Gold Chest 12 - Of certain Passages upon the Moor 13 - Of Sir Gervas Jerome, Knight Banneret of the County of Surrey 14 - Of the Stiff-legged Parson and his Flock 15 - Of our Brush with the King's Dragoons 16 - Of our Coming to Taunton 17 - Of the Gathering in the Market-square 18 - Of Master Stephen Timewell, Mayor of Taunton, part 1 19 - Of Master Stephen Timewell, Mayor of Taunton, part 2 20 - Of a Brawl in the Night 21 - Of the Muster of the Men of the West 22 - Of my Hand-grips with the Brandenburger 23 - Of the News from Havant 24 - Of the Snare on the Weston Road, part 1 25 - Of the Snare on the Weston Road, part 2 26 - Of the Welcome that met me at Badminton 27 - Of Strange Doings in the Boteler Dungeon 28 - Of the Strife in the Council 29 - Of the Affair near Keynsham Bridge 30 - Of the Fight in Wells Cathedral 31 - Of the Great Cry from the Lonely House 32 - Of the Swordsman with the Brown Jacket 33 - Of the Maid of the Marsh and the Bubble which rose from the Bog 34 - Of the Onfall at Sedgemoor, part 1 35 - Of the Onfall at Sedgemoor, part 2 36 - Of my Perilous Adventure at the Mill 37 - Of the Coming of Solomon Sprent 38 - Of the Devil in Wig and Gown, part 1 39 - Of the Devil in Wig and Gown, part 2 40 - Of the End of it All 41 - Appendix

Micah Clarke is a historical adventure novel by British author Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1889 and set during the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 in England. The book is a bildungsroman whose protagonist, Micah Clarke, begins as a boy seeking adventure in a rather romantic and naive way, falls under the influence of an older and vastly experienced, world-weary soldier of fortune, and becomes a grown up after numerous experiences, some of them very harrowing. At the conclusion he must go into exile as a hunted outlaw, becomes a soldier of fortune himself and is launched on lifetime military career. In the process the book also records much of the history of the Monmouth Rebellion, from the point of view of someone living in 17th century England.

Much of the focus is upon the religious dimension of the conflict. The Rebellion was prompted by the desire of many to replace the Catholic King James with a Protestant rival. Micah is the son of a committed Protestant father who sends Micah to fight in the same cause which he himself had fought in during the English Civil War. Micah fights at the Battle of Sedgemoor, which in a narrative aside Doyle obliquely acknowledges to be the last clear-cut pitched battle on open ground between two military forces fought on English soil. Micah also witnesses the bloodletting and indiscriminate hangings in the aftermath, is prosecuted along with many others in the Bloody Assizes of the notorious Judge Jeffreys, is condemned to be sold to slavery in Barbados and is at the last moment saved from the very hold of the slave ship.

Much is made of the role of Protestant ministers in recruiting the rebel army and in motivating its soldiers. Micah Clarke himself becomes increasingly disillusioned with religious extremism and ultimately expresses the view that toleration is a great good. Conan Doyle had himself been brought up as a Catholic and it is likely that Micah expresses Doyle's own thoughts on the subject.