Napoleon & St Helena

On the Island of Exile

Johannes Willms author John Brownjohn translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:The Armchair Traveller at the Bookhaus

Published:12th Oct '08

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Napoleon & St Helena cover

Isolated in the vastness of the South Atlantic and fortress-like in appearance, the Island of St Helena was important for centuries only as a victualling station for ships of the British East India Company, on their long voyages to and from India via the Cape of Good Hope. It was on one of these journeys that Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, took note of the island's remote impregnability. It was Wellington who suggested St Helena as Napoleon Bonaparte's place of imprisonment and exile after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Until his death in 1821, the former Emperor spent his final years under constant British guard. His exile transformed a speck on the maritime map into the most famous island in the world.

'Willms is a wry, entertaining commentator, properly suspicious of hagiography' -- Sara Wheeler The Guardian 20080816

ISBN: 9781905791545

Dimensions: 168mm x 125mm x 13mm

Weight: 400g

240 pages