Author | Francis Yeats-Brown |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Autobiography |
Publisher | The Viking Press |
Publication date | 1930 |
Pages | 304 |
ISBN | 978-141-791-294-0 |
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a 1930 autobiography of British cavalry officer Francis Yeats-Brown published by The Viking Press. [1] The autobiography's release was met with highly positive reviews and Yeats-Brown was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize of 1930. [2]
In 1935, the book was made into a Hollywood blockbuster by the same name starring Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell. [3] The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. [4] The film does not follow the plot of the book.
In 1905, Francis Yeats-Brown, then a young cavalryman, arrives in Bengal to serve in the 17th Bengal Lancers on the Northwest Frontier of British India. He quickly discovers that life in the presence of his fellow soldiers is anything but boring. When not on active duty, he spends his time riding horses around the countryside, hunting boars, smoking tobacco and studying Indian mysticism. He sees active service in France in 1914 and becomes a military air observer in Mesopotamia in 1915. He eventually becomes a prisoner of war of the Ottoman Empire and makes unsuccessful attempts at escape. Yeats-Brown returns to India in 1919, continues to serve in the Cavalry and continues to study Yoga.
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a 1935 American adventure film starring Gary Cooper, directed by Henry Hathaway, and written by Grover Jones, William Slavens McNutt, Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, and Achmed Abdullah. The setting and title come from the 1930 autobiography of the British soldier Francis Yeats-Brown.
Kathleen Jessie Raine was a British poet, critic and scholar, writing in particular on William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently Platonism and Neoplatonism, she was a founding member of the Temenos Academy.
Richard Cromwell also known as Roy Radabaugh, was an American actor. His career was at its pinnacle with his work in Jezebel (1938) with Bette Davis and Henry Fonda and again with Fonda in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). Cromwell's fame was perhaps first assured in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), sharing top billing with Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone.
Andrew Brooke Miller FRSL is an English novelist.
Timothy Peter Mo is a British Asian novelist. Born to a British mother and a Hong Kong father, Mo lived in Hong Kong until the age of 10, when he moved to Britain. Educated at Mill Hill School and St John's College, Oxford, Mo worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist.
Richard David Ellmann, FBA was an American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats. He won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction for James Joyce (1959), one of the most acclaimed literary biographies of the 20th century. Its 1982 revised edition won James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Ellmann was a liberal humanist, and his academic work focuses on the major modernist writers of the 20th century.
The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, United Kingdom, the prizes were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats Black in memory of her late husband, James Tait Black, a partner in the publishing house of A & C Black Ltd. Prizes are awarded in three categories: Fiction, Biography and Drama.
Andrew O'Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Hans Dreier was a German motion picture art director. He was Paramount Pictures' supervising art director from 1927 until his retirement in 1950, when he was succeeded by Hal Pereira.
Robin James Lane Fox, is an English classicist, ancient historian, and gardening writer known for his works on Alexander the Great. Lane Fox is an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford and Reader in Ancient History, University of Oxford. Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at New College from 1977 to 2014, he serves as Garden Master and as Extraordinary Lecturer in Ancient History for both New College and Exeter College. He has also taught Greek and Latin literature and early Islamic history.
Robert Fitzroy 'Roy' Foster, publishing as R. F. Foster, is an Irish historian and academic. He was the Carroll Professor of Irish History from 1991 until 2016 at Hertford College, Oxford.
Achmed Abdullah was an American writer apparently from Afghanistan. He gave his full name variously as "Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el-Iddrissyeh" or as "Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff". He is most noted for his pulp stories of crime, mystery and adventure novels. He wrote screenplays for some successful films. He was the author of the progressive Siamese drama Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness, an Academy Award-nominated film made in 1927. He earned an Academy Award nomination for collaborating on the screenplay to the 1935 film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer.
James S. Shapiro is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching Shakespeare and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture.
Major Francis Charles Claydon Yeats-Brown, DFC was an officer in the British Indian army and the author of the memoir The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, for which he was awarded the 1930 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
William Slavens McNutt, was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 28 films between 1922 and 1939. He was nominated for an Academy Award on two occasions. At the 5th Academy Awards, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story for Lady and Gent. In 1936, he was nominated for Adapted Screenplay for the film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. He was born in Urbana, Illinois and died in San Fernando, California.
Colonel Eric Garnett Atkinson MVO, was a British-Indian soldier and an India 9-goal polo player. He competed in the 1924 and 1927 International Polo Cup.
Franklin Hansen was an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award in the category of Sound Recording for 1932's A Farewell to Arms and was nominated for four more in the same category.
Storm Over Bengal is a 1938 American adventure film that was nominated at the 11th Academy Awards for Best Score, the nomination was for Cy Feuer. Set during the British Raj, the film's working title was Bengal Lancer Patrol. The film was shot in Owens Valley, California. The film stars Patric Knowles in his first film after leaving Warner Bros. as well as Richard Cromwell and Douglass Dumbrille who played similar roles in Lives of a Bengal Lancer.
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer may refer to:
Montague "Monty" Yeats-Brown CMG was a 19th-century British diplomat in Genoa and Boston.