The Free Lances

Texas and Mexico in the 1840s: adventurers, filibusters and a war that neither government quite admits to, seen by an Irish officer who fought in it. Mayne Reid served in the Mexican war, was wounded at Chapultepec, and wrote his novels from the ground he had crossed. The politics are hot and partisan; the descriptions of the country are the reason he was read across Europe. Fifty-five plates range from Sorolla's Valencian markets to David Roberts's Italian squares, matching Reid's eye for the country his characters ride through.