“If She Escapes She Will Publish Everything”: Lady Sale and the Media Frenzy of the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842)

This article explores British literary responses to the conflict in Afghanistan. Using the quantitative methodologies of book history, it sheds light on the public responses to this disastrous war, centring on the media storm surrounding Florentia Sale, whose bestselling Journal was published by John Murray. Though she was feted as “the heroine of Kabul” in the press, I reveal the private letters, anonymous narratives and unpublished journals of other eyewitnesses, which contradict her claim to have written the only contemporaneous account of the war recorded “not only daily … but often … hourly.”