More books have been written about Napoleon Bonaparte (that is, featuring his name in the title or subtitle) than there have been days since his death in May 1821. On the shelves of the London Library alone, there are books on his boyhood, military education, racial background (Arabian, according to one work), libraries, parents, exiles and religious beliefs. There are works covering his activities as a journalist, lover, revolutionary, jailer, ruler of Elba, diplomat, family man, “bisexual emperor”, martyr, Corsican, patron of the arts, legend, tyrant and murder victim. There is a book devoted solely to his coronation, and another to a single bequest in his will. There are books about the books about Napoleon, so-called “autobiographies” of him, and Archbishop Whately and J. B. Pérès even devoted clever little volumes to the proposition that Napoleon never existed.
