A work of pure fiction by a totally discredited author.

Don't waste your money

Hamilton William's work is sloppily researched and cannot be considered a serious work of history. He seems much more concerned with grinding his own political axe than in presenting an accurate view of history. Other historians have dismissed his work as being closer to fiction than reality.

A better study on the period of 1813-1814 is R.F. Delderfield's "Imperial Sunset: The Fall of Napoleon 1813-14."

I'm not an expert on the history of this period, but I do find it fascinating. That's why I bought this book. The writing style is fast-moving and entertaining. The book does provide an interesting look at the complex reasons behind the fall of Napoleon. For example, I didn't know previously about the attempts to assasinate Napoleon. I also enjoyed the drawings and maps. This was a "fun read."

Based on The songs of Bilitis, a beautiful poetry book by Pierre Löuys (about a greek girl who falls in love with another girl) and French Impressionism (Renoir, Degas, etc) David Hamilton tried to translate his photo work to a movie. But a bad screen-play that left no trace of the original, a very pretentious musical score plus Hamiltons' total ignorance on movie direction led the project to terrible results. Maybe nowadays he's achieved a great level as an artist (on photography not on movie direction), he's in fact a master of Light and Shade as he showed on later books; but at the time of the movie he was a very famous mid-level photographer and mainly because of his excesive use of the fog effect. Even that, there were several beautiful photographic moments on the movie that the book lacks of. The book resembles more a big magazine article or a press release for the movie than a real photo book (the same applies to the Tender Cousins' book). I like Bilitis' story very much, but the one by Löuys, and I like Hamilton's later work too, but when it's presented on a real photo book and without his obsessive fog filter.