Rorke's Drift Diary: An Account of the Battles of Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift Zululand 22nd January 1879

by William Penn Symons

Rorke’s Drift Diary is a unique firsthand account of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift, which took place in Zululand on January 22 1879. Written by Captain Penn Symons, one of the few British survivors of Isandwana, where a combined force of less than two thousand British army soldiers and African auxiliaries faced more than twenty thousand Zulu warriors, this book brings the experience of Victorian-era combat to life for today’s readers.

Symons details the two battles from the on-the-ground perspective of a man who witnessed and survived both, opening a fascinating window onto the start of the Anglo-Zulu War. This unique book, which contains previously unseen material, has been created in association with the Victoria Cross Trust from a leather-bound original that was digitized and carefully updated from hand-written annotations contained in the typed manuscript for ease of reading.

96 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2018

Reviews

[Michael G · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short book won’t bring any facts to the table that anyone who’s done much reading on the Anglo-Zulu War won’t already know, but what it does provide is a very readable and quickly-digestible account of the two well-known battles of that war.

The inclusion of individual survivors’ testimonies at the end is a nice touch. There are anecdotes in this book which make for thrilling reading, while at other times also giving you a tragic insight into what it must have felt like to be at Isandlwana on that day.

This is a worthy addition to any Zulu War collection.

[Nate Hendrix · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this for school. I have read other books about this incident that were better. The beginning of this was a little confusing, but the personal accounts of survivors at the end was interesting.

[Arnav roychoudhury · Rating 3 out of 5]

fast paced...