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Napoleon’s Other War
Napoleon’s Other War: Bandits, Rebels and their Pursuers in the Age of Revolutions by Michael Broers. Peter Lang Ltd., Oxford, 2010. £25.00. 232 pps. One of the most enduring myths of the French...
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Thunk…thunk…
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. That, for those of you who are interested, is the sound of self bashing head against desk. Thunk. And why, you ask politely (or cautiously, if you’ve met me before), is Bennetts...
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The underside of empire…
Among the books I took with me on holiday recently was a study of various aspects of the Napoleonic Empire in Italy–mostly administrative, as it happens. Not, you might think, a very enlivening read...
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The sound of 1813…
Among the more difficult yet more necessary phases of research for a historical novel is the act of subtraction. Imagining what life would be like without ______________. I’m all right subtracting the...
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Figaro…Figaro…Figaro!
One of the great joys of writing historical fiction is that there are no barriers. No ‘this belongs to another faculty, like the Music faculty’ moments in the work. (Though I dare say this may hold...
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Napoleonland? You’re having a laff…
No, I’m not. It is not a joke. And no, I am not making it up. I don’t have to. A former French minister, one Yves Jego, beat me to it. (Yes, I am already laughing…) According to a recent Telegraph...
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A Matter of Reputation…
Time has a funny habit of softening the memory of things. Of dulling the edges of pain, blurring the focus, and letting the unspeakable fall away, unmentioned and unlamented, to be replaced by a...
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The Haut and Bas of it: Two Renaissance Virtuosi in Ferrara
Tinney S. Heath. That’s her name. Remember it. I first encountered her when she got in touch because she liked my books. Which obviously made not just my day but my week. But then…then I...
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