Daniel Defoe 
Memoirs of a Cavalier 

"Memoirs of a Cavalier" is a literary sleight of hand. Written in the style of an eyewitness account, it’s actually a work of fiction-a trick Defoe would repeat in his later book "A Journal of a Plague Year". Originally published anonymously, many readers of the time were fooled into thinking it was real. The book’s unnamed protagonist is an English gentleman with a lust for adventure. He details his experiences on battlefields across Europe, as a soldier in both the Thirty Years’ War and the English Civil War. With its vivid scenes of warfare, "Memoirs of a Cavalier" truly makes history come alive. —