The General and the Nightingale brings together Dan Davin's 20 war stories, some drawn from his war diaries and loosely based on his experiences as "a wartime scholar-soldier" and those of his fellow soldiers in the British and New Zealand armies. They yield an unparalleled insight into the Kiwi or Anzac soldier at war during the Mediterranean and African desert campaigns of World War II. Editor Janet Wilson notes they can be read as "fictionalised accounts rather than imaginative fictions." This new publication features comprehensive notes, a glossary, a chronology, a map of story locations, a bibliography and an extensive introduction by Janet Wilson. It is a companion volume to The Gorse Blooms Pale: Dan Davin's Southland short stories.