Napoleon's Memoirs – GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS 1945
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1wcarter
Napoleon's Memoirs – GOLDEN COCKEREL PRESS 1945
A PICTORIAL REVIEW
Edited, introduced and translated by Somerset De Chair.
Limited edition No. 441 of 500 copies.
Two unequal sized volumes.
Volume One – Corsica to Marengo 423 pages
Volume Two – Waterloo Campaign 80 pages
Each volume with a frontispiece portrait and title page vignette.
Monochrome endpaper maps.
Top page edges gilt.
Ruffled page edges.
Bound in gilt image decorated green buckram.
Custom made slipcase 32x20.1cm.
Bookplate of Allan Giles.
A$650
The first edition of Napoleon’s autobiography prepared from the original manuscript.
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the this series can be viewed here.
A PICTORIAL REVIEW
Edited, introduced and translated by Somerset De Chair.
Limited edition No. 441 of 500 copies.
Two unequal sized volumes.
Volume One – Corsica to Marengo 423 pages
Volume Two – Waterloo Campaign 80 pages
Each volume with a frontispiece portrait and title page vignette.
Monochrome endpaper maps.
Top page edges gilt.
Ruffled page edges.
Bound in gilt image decorated green buckram.
Custom made slipcase 32x20.1cm.
Bookplate of Allan Giles.
A$650
The first edition of Napoleon’s autobiography prepared from the original manuscript.
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the this series can be viewed here.
2LBShoreBook
Wow, that's quite nice. Thanks for sharing.
3ubiquitousuk
Thanks >1 wcarter:. Golden Cockel is one press I want to collect more of. The one GCP book I have from the mid 1940s seems to have suffered from war rationing and just doesn't feel that well made (e.g., poor paper). By contrast, I have a pre-war book that feels very nice indeed. How do you feel about the quality of this production?
4wcarter
>3 ubiquitousuk:
Quality seems excellent. Well bound and tactile paper.
There is a crease at the top of the spine that may be original as there is no sign of damage to explain it.
The books seem to have remained in excellent condition after 76 years.
Quality seems excellent. Well bound and tactile paper.
There is a crease at the top of the spine that may be original as there is no sign of damage to explain it.
The books seem to have remained in excellent condition after 76 years.
5ubiquitousuk
>1 wcarter: Feeling somewhat enabled, I bought a copy of the 1944 GCP A Voyage round the World with Captain James Cook in HMS Resolution by Anders Sparrman. It has the same "tall quarto" format as your Memoirs and, given how closely together they were produced, I would guess the same paper. One thing I think is easily missed from a quick glance over your post is that when these books are opened flat on the table you are looking at a surface with the area of an A3 sheet. That much fine paper and nice printing is quite an impressive sight compared to other GCP books with a smaller format.
Now I find myself thinking my copy of Round the World would look nice together on the shelf with Napoleon's Memoirs, and Matthew Flinders' Narrative (which also has the same format) ...
The other interesting thing is that the book has a small handful of marginal notes in pencil. They were clearly written by someone who knows a thing or two because they say things like "This custom is still practised on the islands", or, of a section bemoaning a lack of harbour at a small inlet, "There's one there today". Usually, I abhor defacement of books and would erase them, but I am tempted to leave them in place for historical interest.
Now I find myself thinking my copy of Round the World would look nice together on the shelf with Napoleon's Memoirs, and Matthew Flinders' Narrative (which also has the same format) ...
The other interesting thing is that the book has a small handful of marginal notes in pencil. They were clearly written by someone who knows a thing or two because they say things like "This custom is still practised on the islands", or, of a section bemoaning a lack of harbour at a small inlet, "There's one there today". Usually, I abhor defacement of books and would erase them, but I am tempted to leave them in place for historical interest.
6ultrarightist
>4 wcarter: I like the woodcuts
7ultrarightist
>1 wcarter: This is an impressive book by the GCP. I have the one of the copies bound in full morocco.
8ubiquitousuk
For anyone who may be interested, here are a few very quick and dirty side-by-side photos of A Voyage round the World and Napoleon's Memoirs (the former on the left) now that I have both.
The two books have the same basic format, use the same Arnold's paper, and are both typeset in Perpetua to broadly similar designs. As I mentioned in >5 ubiquitousuk:, there's a third book, Matthew Flinders' Narrative, that also has a similar format. It shares the Trajan lettering on the spine with Napoleon's Memoirs, but is printed in green ink on green paper (a decision Christopher Sandford expresses some regret over in Cockalorum).
The two books have the same basic format, use the same Arnold's paper, and are both typeset in Perpetua to broadly similar designs. As I mentioned in >5 ubiquitousuk:, there's a third book, Matthew Flinders' Narrative, that also has a similar format. It shares the Trajan lettering on the spine with Napoleon's Memoirs, but is printed in green ink on green paper (a decision Christopher Sandford expresses some regret over in Cockalorum).
10LBShoreBook
>1 wcarter: I found a near-fine edition of this book and purchased thanks to this enabling post. Thanks again for sharing, this one looks fantastic. One question if you have a chance to respond, where did you get your custom slipcase? Now I have to decide whether to buy the other two books with this design - catnip for me. 🤦♂️
11ubiquitousuk
These are nice volumes, but I have to say that I had some difficulty in the reading of them. I found the memoirs to be an incredibly dry recollection of Napoleon's campaigns with virtually no personality--more like a mechanical account of which army was maneuvering on which flank and who it's commander was ad nauseum. A rare book I couldn't bring myself to reach the end of. I'm curious if anyone else had a similar take?
12LBShoreBook
>11 ubiquitousuk: LOL, oh no! I went for this one because I thought it would be more readable than the other two with similar designs.
13ubiquitousuk
>12 LBShoreBook: Oh gosh, I didn't want to rain on your parade, although I see in hindsight that my timing wasn't opportune! It might be that you like the book a lot and it just wasn't my cup of tea. I very much hope you do manage to enjoy it.
For what it's worth, I found the other book I photographed (A Voyage round the World...) extremely readable and entertaining, as well as informative. But, again, the subject matter is quite different to the Napoleon book and someone more interested in military history than exploration would likely disagree with my ranking.
For what it's worth, I found the other book I photographed (A Voyage round the World...) extremely readable and entertaining, as well as informative. But, again, the subject matter is quite different to the Napoleon book and someone more interested in military history than exploration would likely disagree with my ranking.
14LBShoreBook
>13 ubiquitousuk: No worries at all, I will be reading it with an open mind. I like military history and exploration so perhaps I will enjoy it more than you did. Either way the three books in this series are exquisite in design, I really like them. After I absorb a slug of recent purchases I suspect I will be on the lookout for the other two.
15tim_rylance
>11 ubiquitousuk: "an incredibly dry recollection of Napoleon's campaigns with virtually no personality--more like a mechanical account of which army was maneuvering on which flank and who it's commander was ad nauseum"
One of the Abe listings for this book (the Heywood Hill copy at £495) says
While on St Helena, Napoleon had dictated his memoirs, with digressions, to generals sharing his captivity, Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon (1783 1853) and Gaspard, Baron Gourgaud (1783-1852). The results appeared in a single publication entitled Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France, sous Napoléon, ecrits à Sainte-Hélène, sous la dictée de l'empereur, par les généraux qui ont partagé sa captivité, et publiés sur les manuscrits entièrement corrigés de la main de Napoléon (1823). It was translated in the same year into English as Memoirs of the History of France during the Reign of Napoleon. The work could scarcely be seen as collaborative, as it is arranged according to the dictatee, with no concern for the chronological order of events described. De Chair's publication largely follows the text of the 1823 translation. But it abridges and amalgamates the two accounts, omitting the asides and rearranging the events chronologically. It furthermore changes the narration from the third to the first person for immediacy.
So it's what Napoleon told his generals with the interesting bits removed, and your summary sounds spot-on. For those really interested, it might be worth looking at the 1823 Memoirs of the History of France during the Reign of Napoleon. It appears to be seven volumes, the first four of which are the generals' recollections.
The Heywood Hill text appears to be taken from an article by Dr. Karen Attar which goes on to say
In all of this de Chair was confident of following Napoleon’s desires:
The voice of the giant himself has been muted until now.
If Napoleon had been alive when the book was being published he would surely have rearranged the material in the most attractive, most arresting form. He who had always been content to appeal to the million, who was the originator of the modern dictatorship by plebiscite, would have wished his book to become a best-seller. I have merely done what he would have wished …
… in an age of ersatz Napoleons, the authentic voice is arresting (p. 6).
De Chair succeeded. To cite the praise appearing in a review in The Illustrated London News (9 Mar. 1946, p. 254): ‘… the effect … is astonishing; one can hear the man talk’.
One of the Abe listings for this book (the Heywood Hill copy at £495) says
While on St Helena, Napoleon had dictated his memoirs, with digressions, to generals sharing his captivity, Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon (1783 1853) and Gaspard, Baron Gourgaud (1783-1852). The results appeared in a single publication entitled Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France, sous Napoléon, ecrits à Sainte-Hélène, sous la dictée de l'empereur, par les généraux qui ont partagé sa captivité, et publiés sur les manuscrits entièrement corrigés de la main de Napoléon (1823). It was translated in the same year into English as Memoirs of the History of France during the Reign of Napoleon. The work could scarcely be seen as collaborative, as it is arranged according to the dictatee, with no concern for the chronological order of events described. De Chair's publication largely follows the text of the 1823 translation. But it abridges and amalgamates the two accounts, omitting the asides and rearranging the events chronologically. It furthermore changes the narration from the third to the first person for immediacy.
So it's what Napoleon told his generals with the interesting bits removed, and your summary sounds spot-on. For those really interested, it might be worth looking at the 1823 Memoirs of the History of France during the Reign of Napoleon. It appears to be seven volumes, the first four of which are the generals' recollections.
The Heywood Hill text appears to be taken from an article by Dr. Karen Attar which goes on to say
In all of this de Chair was confident of following Napoleon’s desires:
The voice of the giant himself has been muted until now.
If Napoleon had been alive when the book was being published he would surely have rearranged the material in the most attractive, most arresting form. He who had always been content to appeal to the million, who was the originator of the modern dictatorship by plebiscite, would have wished his book to become a best-seller. I have merely done what he would have wished …
… in an age of ersatz Napoleons, the authentic voice is arresting (p. 6).
De Chair succeeded. To cite the praise appearing in a review in The Illustrated London News (9 Mar. 1946, p. 254): ‘… the effect … is astonishing; one can hear the man talk’.
16ubiquitousuk
>15 tim_rylance: yes, there's an account of the writing and editing of the book also in the introduction of the GCP edition. I did find it amusing to imagine those generals taking dictation from a man they worshipped so unreservedly that, even if he went off into an hour-long irrelevant digression on the design of gun carriages, they would carry on faithfully transcribing.
