The Opening
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2,593 words · no email, no account
No. 195 · Power & Politics · History
The Saint Helena Exile
a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone Buonaparte)
What the book is
May 5, 1821, the Longwood estate on the island of Saint Helena, two thousand nine hundred kilometres from the nearest Brazilian coast. Napoleon Bonaparte, fifty-one, dies of stomach cancer in the bedroom that has been his prison since October 1815. Five years and six months earlier he had surrendered to the captain of HMS Bellerophon off the coast of Rochefort. His autopsy is performed by the British physician Dr. Francesco Antommarchi. He is buried in the Sane Valley below Longwood. His body is repatriated to the Invalides in Paris on December 15, 1840.
Edward Forrester's biography opens earlier — in Ajaccio, Corsica, where Napoleone Buonaparte was born on August 15, 1769, the fourth child of Carlo and Letizia (after two infants who had died and the future king of Naples Joseph) — and follows the arc through the École Royale Militaire de Brienne and the École Militaire de Paris years, the 1789 Revolution and the long Italian Campaign of 1796-97, the 1799 Brumaire coup, the long Consulate and the 1804 imperial coronation, the long 1805-1812 zenith of Austerlitz and Jena and Friedland and Wagram, the 1812 Russian disaster, the 1814 abdication and the Elba exile, the 1815 Hundred Days and Waterloo, and the long Longwood imprisonment.
What emerges is a portrait of the Ajaccio-born Corsican junior officer whose fifteen years of military command redrew the political map of Europe — and the British-prison-island death the post-Vienna Congress arranged.
At a glance
- Subject
- Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone Buonaparte)
- Shelf
- Power & Politics · History
- Written by
- Edward Forrester
- Chapters
- 19 across 258 pages
- Narrated by
- Theo Brackett
- Editions
- Paperback · EPUB · Audiobook
- Authorisation
- Unauthorised — no subject, estate or label had approval over the text.
Contents · 19 chapters
- 01Ajaccio, August 1769Read free
- 02Brienne and the École Militaire3,235 words
- 03The Corsican Years and the Break with Paoli3,107 words
- 04Toulon, December 17933,591 words
- 05The Whiff of Grapeshot3,691 words
- 06Italy and Egypt4,001 words
- 0718 Brumaire4,166 words
- 08The Code Civil3,421 words
- 09The Concordat and the Pope3,361 words
- 10The Coronation and Austerlitz4,270 words
- 11The Descent: A Structural Overview795 words
- 12The Spanish Ulcer4,233 words
- 13Marie-Louise and the King of Rome3,766 words
- 14Russia4,000 words
- 15Leipzig and the First Abdication3,709 words
- 16The Hundred Days3,965 words
- 17Saint Helena3,503 words
- 18May 5, 1821 and the Legend3,580 words
- 19The Movie3,750 words
The opening chapter is published in full — read it here.
Editions
- Paperback · $19.99
- 6 × 9 in · 258 pp · 60# uncoated cream, black ink · perfect-bound paperback
- EPUB · $3.99
- EPUB 3 · DRM-free · reads on Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books
ISBN 979-8-90623-142-0 - Audiobook · $5.99
- Unabridged · measured from the masters · read by Theo Brackett
ISBN 979-8-90623-241-0
The printed edition has no ISBN registered yet. It affects library and retail listing, not your order.
Questions
01Who is The Saint Helena Exile about?
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone Buonaparte). The title never carries the subject's name: it names one concrete thing out of the life — in this case The Saint Helena Exile — and the name goes on the line underneath.
02Is this an authorised biography?
No. No subject, estate, label or foundation had approval over the text, and none paid for a word of it. The cost of that independence is that no new interviews were conducted for the book; it is built from the public record, and it says on the page where a scene is reconstructed rather than documented.
03Can I read some of it before buying?
Yes — the whole opening chapter and the writer's foreword, free and in full, with no email address and no account. That is 2,593 words of the book.
04How long is it?
About 68,500 words, 19 chapters, 258 pages in the paperback.
05What is the printed book like?
6 × 9 in, 60# uncoated cream, black ink, perfect-bound paperback, matte laminate. Every title in the series uses the same specification, so they line up on a shelf.
