Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
Leather Bindings, 4 volumes, 1885

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Memoirs of Napoleon
Memoirs of Napoleon Memoirs of Napoleon
Memoirs of Napoleon
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne (1769-1834) (author)
R.W. Phipps (editor)
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York:  1885
8 x 5.25 inches, overall, octavo
Calf, quarter leather, leather corners, gilt leather spine, marbleized covers and end papers
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.

Four volume complete set chronicling the story of the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, written by his private secretary.  The books also include a few portraits of significant people.  The title page promises “an account of the important events of the Hundred Days, of Napoleon’s surrender to the English, and of his residence and death at St. Helena, with anecdotes and illustrative extracts from all the most authentic sources.”

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourriene was a military school classmate of Napoleon’s at Brienne, but after finishing school in 1787 he chose a different path and went to Vienna and Leipzig to study diplomacy.  Returning to France after the Revolution in 1792, he renewed his friendship with Napoleon.  By 1797, Napoleon was commander of the French Army in Italy, and he called upon Bourriene for help in negotiating with Austria.  The following year he accompanied Napoleon to Egypt as his private secretary, and remained with him for the next several years.  In 1805, he was sent as the envoy to the free city of Hamburg but was recalled in disgrace in 1810 for his questionable financial dealings, an issue that had surfaced periodically over the previous years.  Bourriene embraced the royalist cause in 1814 and accompanied Louis XVIII to Ghent the following year.  Bourrienne’s Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte remain the most enduring part of his legacy, even though not considered completely reliable in places.  Originally edited by C.M. de Villemarest and published in Paris (1829-31), they have been frequently republished and translated, and the edition edited by Colonel R.W. Phipps was considered the best English-language version produced in the 19th century.

Reference:

“Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne.”  The 1911 Edition Encyclopedia.  http://98.1911encyclopedia.org/B/BO/BOURRIENNE_LOUIS_ANTOINE_FAUVELET_DE.htm (17 August 2004).