Press reviews

A letter written by Lord Nelson in 1799 was recently sold at auction for £20,200. The correspondence, addressed to the Honourable William Frederick Wyndham, British ambassador to to Tuscany, outlines Nelson's displeasure at being unable to secure government funds in order to dispatch news of his successful blockade in Naples.   The full article can […]

The remote island of St Helena, where Napoleon was famously exiled to after the Battle of Waterloo and lived out the rest of his years, is set to have an airport constructed. This news comes after many years of deliberation and stalling. The airport is planned to be constructed by 2015, in time for the […]

The Imperial Circle, makers of the historical film 1805, have announced their latest film project, The Messengers of the Emperor. Promising to offer greater historical accuracy than has ever been seen in a film of the period, the production team has called on re-enactment groups and interested individuals to come forward and participate in the […]

One of the free to read articles from the latest edition of History Today (UK) is John Bew's text on the British politician and diplomat, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, whose decisions and enterprise as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies and Minister for Foreign Affairs during the early nineteenth century were key to […]

The Reviews in History website (UK) has recently published an in-depth appraisal of the work of Herbert Butterfield, author of The Peace Tactics of Napoleon, which was published in 1929. Click here for the review (external link).

The September 2011 issue of French History (UK) features an article from Isabel Yaya entitled “Napoleon as lawgiver: the renewal of an enlightened political motif for the iconographic program of the Louvre's Cour Carée”, which traces Napoleon's role as preceptor of the nation in France's moral and social regeneration. The issue also features a review […]

Using x-ray technology, scientists at Delft University and Antwerp University, working with art curators at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, have discovered that one of Goya's masterpieces, a portrait of Don Ramón Satué (a Madrid supreme court judge) which dates from 1823, hides an earlier painting of a French military officer. It has even […]

The BBC website (UK) features further details on the lock of hair believed to have belonged to Napoleon found in Sir Walter Scott's former home, Abbotsford. The article includes an image of the lock of hair, contained in a small handwritten note.   Click here for the full article (external link).

The Waterloo Journal is published by The Association of Friends of the Waterloo Committee and A.S.B.L. Pour Les Etudes Historiques de la Bataille de Waterloo. The spring 2011 edition features articles from Paul Brunyee (“Napoleon's death and first burial”) and Martin Stoneham (“Lt Col Sir Richard Fletcher”), as well as a report on the recent […]

The Scotsman.com (UK) has reported on the recent find of what is believed to be a lock of Napoleon Bonaparte's hair at Abbotsford, the home of Sir Walter Scott. The Scottish writer was well-known for his collection of Napoleonic artefacts, and a search of his home also turned up a jotter and pen belonging to […]