“AH! BOURRIENNE, YOU ALSO WILL BE IMMORTAL!”: DE BOURRIENNE'S MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, BEATIFULLY BOUND AND EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH HUNDREDS OF ENGRAVINGS, WITH A DOCUMENT SIGNED BY NAPOLEON

(NAPOLEON) DE BOURRIENNE, Louis Antoine Fauvelet. Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte. By… His Private Secretary. To Which Are Now First Added, An Account of the Important Events of The Hundred Days, of Napoleon's Surrender to The English, And of His Residence And Death at St. Helena. London: Richard Bentley, 1836. Four volumes bound in eight. Octavo, late 19th-century full red morocco, raised bands, spines and boards elaborately gilt-decorated with Napoleonic emblems, blue and red morocco gilt doublures, watered silk endpapers, all edges gilt. Housed together in a custom slipcase. $25,000.

Expanded edition of de Bourrienne’s classic biography of Napoleon, with 27 plates, a facsimile of Napoleon’s abdication, and a folding map depicting the Battle of the Nile, expanded to from four volumes to eight and abundantly extra-illustrated with about 300 engraved plates, including portraits, scenes, views and maps, with a document signed by Napoleon bound into the front of the first volume. Beautifully bound by Sangosrki & Sutcliffe in full morocco with Napoleonic emblems in gilt.

"Bourrienne, a French statesman, studied at the military school of Brienne, where he was on friendly terms with the young Napoleon. In 1797 he became Napoleon's secretary," an appointment which "continued during all the most brilliant part of Napoleon's career" and afforded him the intimacy upon which the Memoirs are based (CBD:189; preface). "The fame of Bourrienne rests, not upon his achievements or his original works… but upon his Memoirs" (Britannica). First published in French in 1829; in English translation in 1830. Bound into the first volume is a manuscript document from 1799 signed by Napoleon (as "Bonaparte"). The document, a manuscript letter, concerns the operations of the French Army in Egypt; it reads in part: "Take advantage… of the days when… General Dugua can stay at Damietta to disarm the army there, arrest suspect men and send them to Cairo. Disarm the villages, take hostages and take complete control of Lake Manzala. As long as you are not master of this lake, you cannot be sure of controlling Damietta. I am writing to General Dugua that he is to reconnoiter the shores of the sea… Try to learn the name of the English frigate and if you should learn that they are disembarking somewhere to get provisions, let them disembark for a few days in order to have the time to take them in an ambush. The Province of Damietta should already have supplied the horses that it has to supply. I salute you. [signed] Bonaparte."" General Dugua was in charge of the the fifth division of the French Army during the Egypt Campaign, serving as commander of Cairo from February of 1799 until March of 1800, when he returned to France. With a typed index to all of the extra illustrations.

Napoleon document with unobtrusive evidence of glue removal along one edge; joints to beautiful bindings expertly repaired.