The Real Falstaff: Sir John Fastolf and the Hundred Years' War, Stephen Cooper (Pen and Sword Military, Barnsley, 2010) xiii, 210pp., hardback, £19.99, ISBN 978 1 84884 123 9.

This is the first full biography of Sir John Fastolf, the famous military commander of the Hundred Years' War, on whom Shakespeare is thought to have modelled his character Fastolf.  Fastolf fought the French for nearly 30 years.  The central theme of Stephen Cooper's book is Fastolf's role in holding Normandy and Mains against more powerful French resistance and Fastolf's rivalry with the more famous Sir John Talbot.  More controversially Cooper re-sites the Battle of the Herrings of 1429.  Fastolf was noted for his brutality in fighting; he died in his bed at Caister in 1459.  He had a friendship with Sir John Paston but the family's well-known letters describe him as ‘cruel and vengible'.

Cooper, the author of Sir John Hawkwood's Chivalry and the Age of War (2008), has written a vivid account of the French campaigns of Henry V and the Duke of Bedford.  There are many clear photographs, a glossary, full end-notes, an index and a bibliography of some 11 pages, including websites, primary and secondary sources and manuscript collections in London, Norfolk, Oxford and Paris.

In short, it is a thorough work of scholarship, available at a price within the pocket of the general reader.