WOMEN AS MEN IN WAR

I enjoyed Rita Mae Brown’s review of Mary Fleming Zirin’s “spirited re-telling of an extraordinary story” (Book Review, Dec. 18). The original author of “The Calvary Maiden , “ Nadezhda Durova, no doubt recounted a true--and surprising--story of a woman disguised as a man in the army. But in one sense, Durova’s story is not extraordinary at all, because by 1800 or so there was already a long tradition of such military transvestite narratives. Unlike Durova, the women are usually lower class, they seldom write their memoirs as diaries, and they have a propensity for song. The common motive is usually the desire to follow a lover who has enlisted.

One of these narratives was told by the semi-literate Hannah Snell to an anonymous author who wrote her story as “The Female Soldier” (1750). Snell fought in the British army and navy for five years, was seriously wounded at the siege of Pondicherry, but all “without the least discovery of her sex.” The fascinating story of Hannah Snell will be of interest to readers of “The Calvary Maiden.” A facsimile edition of “The Female Soldier,” with an introduction by Dianne Dugaw, will be published by the Augustan Reprint Society early in 1989. Anyone who is interested is invited to contact the Society at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron St., Los Angeles, Calif. 90018. (213) 731-8529.

SIMON VAREY

LOS ANGELES