But Napoleon is also frequently the focus of lighter works. In An Infamous Army,
Georgette Heyer's masterful retelling of the Battle of Waterloo,
Napoleon never actually appears on page. But "Boney" (as the British
upper class scornfully called him) dominates every aspect of life in
England and Belgium in the spring of 1815. Heyer juxtaposes the lords
and ladies who danced and flirted their way through Brussels and the
violence of the battle where Napoleon so very nearly won.
He also appears in Lauren Willig's The Garden Intrigue
as a slightly pompous theater addict, who commissions his
stepdaughter's friend Emma Delagardie to write a play for him. Emma has
to navigate the complicated world of the Bonaparte household with the
assistance of the verbose poet Augustus Whittlesby. Napoleon was quite
capable of arresting people for trifling slights, keeping Emma
constantly on her toes.
In
a creative alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars, Naomi Novik's
Temeraire series stars Captain Will Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire,
who fight as part of the British Aerial Corps. In book three of the
series, Black Powder War, Napoleon gets a celestial dragon of
his own, and flies into battle at the head of his army and fighting
dragon corps. His military genius becomes even more frightening when
given this aerial dimension, and it looks like there are no limits to
his success.Many other Napoleonic novels offer the modern reader a glimpse of one man who dominated life in a manner that can be difficult to imagine today.
Have you read any of these books?
They are all fun, in very different ways!
I originally wrote this "Further Reading" post for Shelf Awareness and was compensated for it. Images are affiliate links.
