Thiers, M.A. (author) / Campbell, D. Forbes (translator). History of the Consulate and the Empire of France under Napoleon. Forming a Sequel to “The History of the French Revolution”. By M.A. Thiers. Late Prime Minister of France, Member of the French Academy, and of the Institute &c. &c. &c. Translated by D. Forbes Campbell, Esq. with the Sanction and Approval of the Author. First Edition in English: “The only authorized Edition”. 20 volumes bound in 10. London, Henry Colburn, Colburn and Co., Willis and Sotheran, 1845 to 1862. 21 x 14 cm. xii, 272 pages, FP / xiii, 252 pages / viii, 328 pages FP / viii, 322 pages / vi, 254 pages FP / vi, 302 pages / vi, 362 pages FP / vi, 378 pages / viii, 318 pages FP / vi, 230 pages / vi, 192 pages / viii240 pages / vi, 251 pages / viii, 268 pages / xi, 253 pages / vii, 277 pages / (2), 480 pages / (2), 390 pages / (2), 361 pages / (2), 440 pages. Uniform calf over marbled boards. Red and black morocco labels with gilt titles, author and volume numbers. Elaborate gilt decorations to spine. Marbled edges and end papers. Very good condition. All bindings sound. Minor shelf wear, rubbing and bumping. Edges dust dulled. First and last few pages dust dulled and mildly foxed. Internally very clean. A lovely set in sturdy attractive bindings. See images.

Publishing History:

Volumes I to IX published by Henry Colburn, also sold by Chapman and Hall.
Volumes X and XI published by Colburn and Co.
Volumes XII to XX published by Willis and Sotheran.

Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797 – 1877) was a French statesman and historian. He was the second elected President of France and first President of the Third Republic.
Thiers was a key figure in the July Revolution of 1830, which overthrew King Charles X in favor of the more liberal King Louis Philippe, and the Revolution of 1848, which overthrew the Orléans monarchy and established the Second Republic. He served as a prime minister in 1836 and 1840, dedicated the Arc de Triomphe, and arranged the return to France of the remains of Napoleon from Saint-Helena. He was first a supporter, then a vocal opponent of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (who served from 1848 to 1852 as President of the Second Republic and then reigned as Emperor Napoleon III from 1852 to 1871). When Napoleon III seized power, Thiers was arrested and briefly expelled from France. He then returned and became an opponent of the government.
Following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, which Thiers opposed, he was elected chief executive of the new French government and negotiated the end of the war. When the Paris Commune seized power in March 1871, Thiers gave the orders to the army for its suppression. At the age of seventy-four, he was named President of the Republic by the French National Assembly in August 1871.
Thiers was just one example of 19th century French writers who also had prominent political careers. Others were Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Alexis de Tocqueville; but Thiers was the only writer who reached the highest level of the French state. His major literary works were his ten-volume history of the French Revolution, and his twenty-volume history of the following period, the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon I. Both works were filled with Thiers’ personal opinions and judgments, but also benefited from his personal access to many of the participants, including his political mentor, Talleyrand, and Napoleon’s surviving generals.
His second major work was his enormous History of the Consulate and the Empire, in twenty volumes, published between 1845 and 1862. Like the history of the Revolution, it was a critical and popular success in France, published at a time when the French public was looking for heroes. It sold 50,000 complete sets of the book. An American professor of French literature, O.B. Super, wrote a foreword to an American edition of the volume of Thiers’ book on the Battle of Waterloo, published in 1902. He wrote: “Thiers’ style is characterized by brilliant and dramatic descriptions and a liberal and tolerant spirit, but he is at times deficient in rigorous historical accuracy and owing to the intense national feeling of the writer, his admiration for Napoleon sometimes gets the better of his judgement. Thiers did more than any other Frenchman to keep alive in France “la légende napoléonienne”, which made possible the second empire with all its disastrous consequences for France.

• Keywords: Classical & Old Literature · Fine Bindings & Editions · History · History & Culture · Military · Naval & Military History · Politics · Reference · Reference · Social Sciences
• Language: English
• First edition
• Inventory Number: 104169AB

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