G A Henty was a 19th century novelist, special correspondent and Imperialist. His best-known works are historical adventures. While most of the 122 books he wrote were for children, he also wrote adult novels, non-fiction such as The March to Magdala (1868) and Those Other Animals (1891), short stories for the likes of The Boy's Own Paper and edited the Union Jack, a weekly boys magazine. In the Irish Brigade was written in 1914 and tells an adventure story during the war with Flanders and Spain. This was a time of religious persecution, poor government, secular hatred, and general oppression. The Irish soldiers left Ireland to fight in the French army and were some of the best soldiers fighting at that time.