Publications

Napoleon’s Purgatory is a work portraying the human side of Napoleon as revealed by those who shared his exile on the island of St. Helena. Through the diaries and journals of the Emperor’s servants, generals, and companions come the stories of Napoleon’s tender love for children, his captivating sense of humor, his eternal love for […]

From the publishers: Ann Ayre Hely was born in the early 19th century in Ravenstone, Leicestershire. After the death of her husband, she volunteered to become a nurse in Turkey during the Crimean War. This is her story but will also be of interest to anyone interested in the Crimean war and the history of […]

From the publishers: Alexandra Deutsch literally “unpacks” Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte’s personal belongings in this intuitively sophisticated material culture biography of the woman whose seductive beauty and tragic marriage repeatedly pulls us back for another look and, ideally, a deeper understanding of the person behind the celebrity. In addition to letters and portraits, Deutsch found bits […]

As students of Napoleonic history, we are led to Germaine de Stael via the threatened (and threatening) gaze of the First Consul. And yet, perhaps, she more than any of her contemporaries stands for the sort of middle-ground, monarchic politics that Napoleon himself would subsequently embody. In this stimulating study of the crucial decade of […]

(in French) The two volumes of Éric Anceau’s “Empire libéral” (Volume 1: Genesis, Advent, realisations; Volume 2: Threats, the fall, posterity), consist of 1425 pages of an extremely dense and meticulous analysis of the last phase of the Second Empire, a period of political turmoil, reformation and modernisation – in other words, the liberalisation of […]

From the publishers: This monograph dedicated to the most spectacular example of Parisian First Empire interior architecture retraces the history of the building and the lives of its residents. The Hôtel de Beauharnais, constructed in 1713, gained renown during the Consulate period. In 1803, Josephine Bonaparte acquired the property for her son, Eugène de Beauharnais, […]

From the publishers: “Using largely unpublished sources, this book tells the story of Lady Georgiana Lennox and the unique friendship she cherished with the Duke of Wellington. She first met the Duke on his return from India when he was serving under Georgy’s father as Chief Secretary. The Lennox family moved to Brussels in 1813 […]

From the publishers: “When the leaders of the French Revolution executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793, they sent a chilling message to the hereditary ruling orders in Europe. Believing that monarchy anywhere presented a threat to democratic rule in France, the leaders of the revolution declared war on European aristocracies, including those of […]

From the publishers: “The Pursuit of Power draws on a lifetime of thinking about nineteenth-century Europe to create an extraordinarily rich, surprising and entertaining panorama of a continent undergoing drastic transformation. The book aims to reignite the sense of wonder that permeated this remarkable era, as rulers and ruled navigated overwhelming cultural, political and technological […]

Letters by Antoine Quatremère de Quincy (1755–1849) to Miranda [written 1796] and Canova [written 1818] on the Abduction of Antiquities from Rome  Introduction by Dominique Poulot English translation by Chris Miller and David Gilks Publisher’s presentation: In the 1790s and early 1800s, the art world experienced two big events: First came the military confiscation of masterpieces from Italy […]