Review of “With Clive in India”

With Clive in India is a book written by G. A. Henty, a prolific author with many historical fiction novels under his belt, of which this is one. It follows a normal G. A Henty story, with the main character being a very compassionate person, as well as extremely skilled. Like most of Henty’s characters, Charlie, this books main character, is one of few soldiers to learn his enemies language, lead and train a group of soldiers after his own fighting style, and was a prominent but not important person in the grand scheme of things. Of course, if the main character had been an important person, the claim of “historical fiction” would have become questionable, and the book would’ve been dull if he wasn’t prominent.

The book starts in England, with a small family, the Marryats. They are quite poor, the father of the household died long ago, and the head of the family, the mother, writes to her uncle asking for help. The uncle immediately sends for them, is quite well off, and helps them into an honorable lifestyle. Part of this is having his nephew earn his way, so he enlists him to help the English in India. Charlie goes to India and on his way there is captured by pirates. He sabotages their fort from the inside and helps his rescuers succeed, granting him a bit of fame. He is then sent to help with an Indian ally train his troops, and becomes somewhat known among the natives. He staves off a couple assassination attempts in such a way as to make the failed assassins join him. He then joins Clive, a military leader in India for the English forces, and helps him in several battles, which Henty describes to an extreme extent . Eventually, Charlie returns to his home and lives a great life with his family, as well as keeping ties with his friends from the war

This was a good book, and if you enjoy any other G. A. Henty stories then I’m sure you’ll like this one. But personally I thought it was rather dull, as nearly half the book is spent detailing battles and transactions between Indian nations and the English to the point that the novel feels more like a textbook. It probably doesn’t help that I’ve read so many G. A. Henty books as well, as the stories are all very similar. Overall, however, I think that it’s still a good book, and do recommend it to people interested in the mid 18th century India, or just want to read a story.