Published in 1991, I found this copy at a free English-language book exchange shelf in a tiny ice cream parlor in Arles, France. It seemed an appropriate place to read about the Emperor Napoleon. Somehow, I had the mistaken idea that he had been exiled to Elba (due to the palindrome, "Able was I, ere I saw Elba") rather than to St. Helena, which is 1800 miles from Brazil, 1200 miles from Africa, and 700 miles from its nearest neighbor! Julia Blackburn does a magnificent job of telling the history of the island, how it was "discovered" time and again, exploited, nearly ruined, barely revived. And how it became the prison for the remaining bombastic, regal, and pitiful years of Napoleon's life. She writes beautifully, as when she describes her own trip to the Island during a storm: "You wake up out of a restless dream to a tremendous hubbub of noise and movement and your body is so busy with its own private battle that you can't ask anything of it. There is only passivity, the passivity of waiting for something to change, and you lie there throughout a long day, watching the reflection the waves outside throw on the ceiling of the cabin: a fleeting patterns of light and thin shadows that rushes with a relentless flickering energy like the shadow of smoke in a wind." ( )

Multi-layered travelogue, focussing on Napoleon's years of captivity and death on St Helena, drawing on historical accounts, tempered with a recent visit and commentary on the unusual aspects of life on this remote island. ( )

Ms. Blackburn writes in a unique & interesting style not only about the last days of Napoleon's life, but of the history & heritage of the people of St. Helena, which she blends with her own impressions of the both. The result is a book that cannot be put down until one reaches the end.
One of the things that I had yet to learn prior to reading this was that Saint Helena had once been a lush & prosperous island which, unfortunately was ruined only after a few hundred years of it being populated. However, it was still represented in the contemporary tourist guides as it was in its highest glory, long after it became a barren rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Another interesting point in the book, is the commercialism surrounding Napoleon's deathsite, not only before, but also after the body had been interred & returned to France.
These are but a few of the unique aspects to Blackburn's work. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, even if they were not a Napoleon enthusiast ( )