Under Two Flags (novel)

Under Two Flags (1867) was a best-selling novel by Ouida.[1] The most famous of her books, it tells the story of an English aristocrat, apparently in disgrace, who disappears and joins a French battalion in Algeria, loosely based on the Foreign Legion.

First edition title page

Plot

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The novel is about The Hon. Bertie Cecil (nicknamed Beauty of the Brigades).[2][3]

In financial distress because of his own profligacy and the loss of an important horse-race on which he has bet extensively, and falsely accused of forgery, but unable to defend himself against the charge without injuring the "honour" of a lady and also exposing his younger brother (the real culprit), Cecil fakes his own death and exiles himself to Algeria where he joins the Chasseurs d'Afrique, a regiment comprising soldiers from various countries, rather like the French Foreign Legion.

After Cecil's great childhood friend and the friend's beautiful sister show up in Africa, and after a series of melodramatic self-sacrifices by Cecil and by the young girl Cigarette, a "child of the Army" who sacrifices her life saving Cecil from a firing squad, the main conflicts are resolved and the surviving characters return to England to fortune, title, and love.

Adaptations

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Blanche Bates as Cigarette in David Belasco's Broadway production of Under Two Flags (1901)

The book has also served as a basis for a number of stage and film adaptations.

References

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  1. ^ "LOUISE DE LA RAMEE ("OUIDA")". www.ulib.niu.edu. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
  2. ^ "35-2Driss". Archived from the original on 4 July 2010. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
  3. ^ The Forgotten Female Aesthetes: Literary Culture in Late-Victorian England, by Talia. Schaffer; pp. x + 298. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press
  4. ^ Mantle, Burns, and Garrison P. Sherwood, eds., The Best Plays of 1899–1909, (Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company), 1944, pp. 387–388.
  5. ^ "[Caption]". Munsey's Magazine. September 1915. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  6. ^ "Under Two Flags". Progressive Silent Film List. Silent Era. Retrieved 29 March 2017.
  7. ^ Braff, Richard E. (2002). "Under Two Flags". The Braff Silent Short Film Working Papers: Over 25,000 Films, 1903-1929, Alphabetized and Indexed. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786410316.
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  • Under Two Flags at Project Gutenberg