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George Alfred Henty, war correspondent and author, was born at Trumpington, near Cambridge, on December 8, 1832. He was educated at Westminster School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Leaving Cambridge without a degree, he went to the Crimea during the war with Russia and served in the purveyor's department of the army. On being invalided home he was appointed purveyor to the forces, and in 1859 he went to Italy to organize the hospitals of the Italian legion. After his return he held similar home appointments for a time, but he resigned his commission later and engaged in mining operations in Wales and Sardinia. In 1865 he began his career as war correspondent for the Standard newspaper, and in this capacity went through the Austro-Italian, Abyssinian, Franco-German, Ashanti, and Turco-Servian campaigns. He was also in Paris during the Commune, and he accompanied Edward VII when, as Prince of Wales, he visited India. He described two of these campaigns in The March to Magdala (1868) and The March to Coomassie (1874). His death took place on his yacht in Weymouth harbour on November 16, 1902.

Henty wrote several novels of the orthodox type, but his reputation rests upon his stories for boys, which are full of adventure and are mostly based on famous historical events. Among them are:* Out on the Pampas* (1868); The Young Franc-Tireurs (1871), a Story of the Franco-German War; The Young Buglers, a Tale of the Peninsular War (1879); In Times of Peril, a Tale of India (1881); Under Drake's Flag (1882); With Clive in India (1883); Facing Death (1883), treating of coal-mining; The Young Colonists (1884), a Story of the Transvaal Revolt and the Zulu War; The Lion of the North (1885), a Story of Gustavus Adolphus; St. George for England: a Tale of Cressy and Poitiers (1885); In Freedom's Cause: a Story of Wallace and Bruce (1885); The Young Carthaginian (1886), a Story of Hannibal; With Wolfe in Canada (1886); Orange and Green: a Tale of the Boyne and Limerick (1887); Bonnie Prince Charlie: a Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden (1887); The Cat of Bubastes (1888), treating of Life in Ancient Egypt; Captain Bayley's Heir (1888); By Pike and Dyke (1889), a Story of the Dutch War of Independence; One of the 28th: a Tale of Waterloo (1889); Tales of Daring and Danger (1889); A Chapter of Adventures (1890); By Right of Conquest (1890), a Story of the Conquest of Mexico; The Tiger of Mysore (1895), a Story of Tippoo Sahib; Through Russian Snows (1895), a Tale of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow; The Reign of Terror (1896); With Moore at Corunna (1897); Both Sides the Border (1898), a Story of Hotspur and Owen Glendower; In the Irish Brigade (1900); With Roberts to Pretoria (1902); With Kitchener in the Soudan (1903); and With the Allies to Pekin (1904).