ONE OF ONLY 26 SUPERBLY ILLUSTRATED AND SUMPTUOUSLY BOUND 21-VOLUME SETS, CONSISTING OF FOUR CLASSIC NAPOLEONIC SOURCES: HAZLITT, BOURRIENNE, JUNOT, AND TALLEYRAND, WITH 17 ORIGINAL SIGNED AUTOGRAPH DOCUMENTS TIPPED IN, INCLUDING A FINE DOCUMENT SIGNED BY NAPOLEON AS EMPEROR
(NAPOLEON) HAZLITT, William. The Life of Napoleon. Six volumes. WITH: BOURRIENNE, Louis Antoine Fauvelet. Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte. Four volumes. WITH: JUNOT. Memoirs of Madame Junot. Duchesse D'Abrantes. Six volumes. WITH: TALLEYRAND. Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand. Five volumes. London: Grolier Society, [circa 1905]. Together, twenty-one uniformly bound volumes. Octavo, original full green paneled morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, gilt borders with red morocco cover onlays tooled with Napoleonic emblems, red morocco gilt doublures with armorial centerpieces, watered silk endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut, partially unopened. $49,000.
Elegant limited "Edition des Amateurs," lettered X of only 26 copies, with original signed autograph documents tipped into 16 of the volumes—including a royal decree signed by Napoleon as Emperor—and with 123 double-suite frontispieces and copperplate engravings throughout (one of each suite hand-colored). With accompanying original documents by Barbe-Marbois, George Canning, Louis XIV, Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, the Empress Maria Louise, Montesquieu, Saint Germain, Bonnefoy, and many others of their contemporaries. Exquisitely bound in full morocco-gilt by the Grolier Bindery.
The document signed by Napoleon is a royal decree raising the annual fund of the Civil List to 6,000,000 Lire and detailing who is charged with the execution of this decree. The one-page document measures 12-1/2 by 8 inches, is written in Italian and dated 5 October 1807; Napoleon has signed "Napol," as he often signed while Emperor.
This beautifully illustrated collection contains four of the great works related to Napoleon: Hazlitt's Life, Bourrienne's Memoirs, Madame Junot's Memoirs, and Talleyrand's Memoirs. Hazlitt, in his Life, originally published in 1828, "cherished an idolatry for his hero, singular in one who boasted of an uncompromising love of political liberty; but he regarded Napoleon as representing antagonism to the doctrine of the divine right of kings" (DNB). "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, which first appeared in English in 1830, are based (CBD). Madame Junot knew the Bonaparte family almost from childhood. After her husband's death, she took to writing for a living. Her 1831 Memoirs give an excellent, if not always wholly reliable, picture of court, military, diplomatic, and literary society of the period. Talleyrand, the celebrated diplomat associated with Bonaparte's coup d'etat and the Emperor's trusted advisor, eventually represented France at the Congress of Vienna after Napoleon's downfall. His Memoirs appeared in English in 1805 and 1848.
Spines evenly toned on Talleyrand volumes only. A documents with minor expert paper repairs, Volume XIV wit expert reinforcement to joints. A magnificent set, historically significant and richly produced.