Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan, 1841–2

Lady Sale (née Florentia Wynch, 1790–1853) became an instant heroine when her journal of the disastrous events in Afghanistan in 1841–2 was published in 1843. The wife of Sir Robert Sale, second-in-command of the British forces, she was taken hostage, along with her daughter and baby grand-daughter, after the massacre of over 4,500 British troops at Kabul, while her husband commanded a besieged garrison at Jalalabad. The small group of hostages was moved from place to place, with only the clothes they stood up in, to evade attempts at rescue over a period of nine months. Eventually, they were able to bribe a tribal leader to release them, and they met up with a British rescue party just before Afghani pursuers overtook them. Lady Sale's diary, carried in a cloth bag at her waist, was published almost unedited, and is an extraordinary account of her ordeal.