1831 Bourrienne Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Vols. I & II
1831 Bourrienne Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte Vols. I & II
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Bourrienne was as close to Napoleon as anyone ever got. He served as his private secretary during the years of ascent, and what he recorded is neither hagiography nor pure polemic, but something more complicated and more interesting. He knew the man. He also fell from favor, which colors everything he writes in ways that serious readers of Napoleon's life will want to account for. That tension is part of what makes the Memoirs so enduring.
This is a two-volume set from the 1831 Edinburgh edition, translated by the Scottish scholar John S. Memes and published jointly by Constable and Co. and Hurst, Chance and Co. of London. It is a new edition, not the first, but it sits well within the first wave of English-language Napoleonic literature, printed while the generation that lived through him was still alive. The bindings are half leather over vivid marbled boards in green, red, ochre, and cream, a pattern that has held its color remarkably well. Each volume carries
The half-leather spines show dry, rubbed wear consistent with nearly two centuries of handling. The surface of the leather has dulled and shows some scuffing, but the spines retain their structure and the raised bands are intact. The gilt lettering on both title and volume labels remains legible, though softened. The marbled paper boards are a genuine bright point: the green, red, ochre, and cream pattern is vivid and largely undamaged, with only light wear at the board edges and corners. The text block edges are toned to a warm amber throughout. The title pages of both volumes show light foxing and a brownish stain, moderate in area but stable, visible in the photographs. The engraved frontispiece plates are present in both volumes and display well. No bookplates, inscriptions, or ownership marks are present. A sound, honest pair of early nineteenth-century volumes in their original bindings, showing wear appropriate to their age.
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