Amberley Publishing - 2018
The Blog's title comes from Samuel M. Osgood's paperback in the Problems in European Civilization that held sway with so many university students in the 1960s; I know, I was one of them. I still have other volumes on The Character of Philip II, The "New Monarchies", Metternich, the "Coachman of Europe".
D.C. Heath and Company - 1963
Osgood's book is a compendium of the various approaches to Napoleon III's character and regime, ranging from Victor Hugo's but a rascal...he has the look of a person who is not quite awake..., to J. M. Thompson's he was a man to be pitied more than to be blamed. I wrote an essay for a Mr. Chorley (I can recollect nothing about him) at the start of my second year at University College, London University, entitled How far did Napoleon III succeed in establishing his avowed aim of restoring social unity to France? Although I gained a B+ for my effort, his comments were fairly critical and they ended with Watch your English. Something I have been trying to do ever since.
I have always had a 'soft spot' for Napoleon III, partly because I have nothing but admiration for the Paris of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Georges Haussmann's transformation of the narrow, winding, gloomy streets into the magnificent boulevards is stupendous and awe-inspiring. The combustion engine has tried hard to destroy the achievement, but has only partially succeeded. Whatever; I have amassed a small selection of books about Napoleon III, both biographical, historical and fiction.
Hamish Hamilton - 1971
Biography and History:
n.d.: The Prince Imperial. A Short Biography (St. Michael's Abbey Press)
1971: Joanna Richardson - La Vie Parisienne 1852-1870 (Hamish Hamilton)
1972: W.H.C. Smith - Napoleon III (Wayland Publishers)
1973: Edgar Holt - Plon-Plon. The Life of Prince Napoleon 1822-1891 (Michael Joseph)
1978: David Duff - Eugénie and Napoleon III (Wm. Collins, Sons & Co.)
1997: Roger Price - Napoleon III and the Second Empire (Routledge Lancaster Pamphlets)
1999: Fenton Bresler - Napoleon III. A Life (HarperCollins Publishers)
2004: Desmond Seward - Eugénie. The Empress and her Empire (Sutton Publishing)
2018: Alan Strauss-Schom - The Shadow Emperor. A Biography of Napoleon (Amberley)
Novels:
1905: William Dana Orcutt - The Flower of Destiny. An Episode (A.C. McClurg & Co.)
1906: Ladbrooke Black and Robert Lynd - The Mantle of the Emperor (Francis Griffiths)
1910: Henry de Vere Stacpoole - The Drums of War (John Murray)
1912: Richard Dehan - Between Two Thieves (William Heinemann)
1918: H.C. Bailey - The Pillar of Fire (Methuen & Co.)
1921: Max Pemberton - Prince of the Palais Royal (Cassell and Company)
I aim to read the novels next Spring; I have read some of the non-fiction books and I still have a sneaking regard for Napoleon! He never stopped trying to get to the top and, once there, enjoyed himself. Eugénie coped as best she could, even after the tragedy of the loss of her son, the Prince Imperial, done to death by the Zulus in far-away southern Africa. I want to visit the family tomb in Farnborough - before it's too late. In the 1990s, a committee of 200 French politicians, writers and historians started to lobby to bring Napoleon's remains back to France. A book by the Gaullist Speaker Philippe Séguin, argued that the emperor had been sadly misunderstood. He modernised and liberalised France, building roads, railways and establishing the first credit unions as a means of furthering industry and encouraging trade. Un bon oeuf. However, first they kicked him out, now they want him back. They haven't succeeded so far and Brexit, hopefully, has put the kibosh on the idea.
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