The young Elizabeth Butler (née Thompson, 1846–1933) and her sister, the poet Alice Meynell, were educated at home by their wealthy father, and much of their childhood was spent in Italy. Elizabeth began to train as an artist at the Female School of Art, South Kensington, in 1866. She became famous for her work in the genre (unusual for a woman) of military art, one of her best known paintings being The Roll Call, an imagined incident from the Crimea. She took great trouble to ensure the accuracy of the detail of regimental uniform, and her depiction of the bravery and stoicism of the 'ordinary British soldier' was much appreciated in the late nineteenth century. This brisk and amusing 1922 autobiography, illustrated with her own sketches, takes the reader from her childhood through her artistic success to her life as the wife of a soldier and the mother of five children.
