Life of Napoleon by Stendhal

For the first time, English readers can explore Stendhal’s dual portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte in one volume: Life of Napoleon (1817) and Memoirs on Napoleon (1836). Never before united in translation, these works trace a writer’s restless dance with the Corsican titan across two decades. In the Life, a young Stendhal sifts through the wreckage of Napoleon’s fall, torn between awe and critique. Twenty years later, seasoned by The Red and the Black, the Memoirs blaze with defiance and lyricism, steeped in memories of a youth in Napoleonic France. No seamless biography awaits, Stendhal gallops past gaps, leaps over details, yet this imperfection holds its power.